2023-06-07 10:03:29
“According to preliminary forecasts, there are between 22,000 and 40,000,” said Moscow’s head of administration in Cherson, Vladimir Saldo, on Wednesday morning on Russian state television when asked how many people lived in the disaster area.
The crew chief of the dam city of Nowa Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, also said that around 100 people were trapped there by the water masses and had to be rescued. According to the information, seven residents are currently missing, and around 900 are said to have already been brought to safety. Leontyev also spoke of several completely or partially flooded places. “The town of Korsunka is – with the exception of the last street – completely under water,” he said on Russian television.
Authorities expect rising water levels
However, the Ukrainian authorities in the Cherson region expect the water levels to continue to rise. The water will rise another meter by Thursday morning, spokesman for the Cherson military administration, Olexander Tolokonnikov, said on Ukrainian television on Wednesday. At the same time, he said that the dam would continue to break, which is why the water might still rise. The water flows out of the reservoir over the badly damaged dam wall.
In the city of Kherson, according to the authorities, the water rose by more than two meters, the first floors of buildings are flooded. The evacuation of residents is said to be ongoing. Some helpers in the region were in boats looking for people who might be holding out on the roofs of their flooded houses to be rescued. There were videos on social networks of people desperately trying to get their sodden dogs, cats and other pets to safety.
state of emergency declared
A day following the dam was destroyed, the Russian occupation authorities declared a state of emergency in the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region, the Russian news agency TASS reported, citing rescue services. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russian occupiers of endangering all lives with the terrorist attack on the hydroelectric power station and the dam. They intentionally destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest water reservoirs on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of people are in the danger zone. Hundreds of thousands in another catchment area are now without normal access to drinking water.
“Our services, everyone who can help, are already in action,” Zelenskyj wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “But we can only help in the area controlled by Ukraine.” Most of the region is under Russian occupation, where the authorities have now declared a state of emergency. Selenskyj accused the occupiers of not taking care of the plight of the people.
Russian war crime?
The Ukrainian general staff on Wednesday described the blowing up of the Kakhovka dam as a Russian war crime. The aim was to prevent the advance of Ukrainian troops in the region, the staff said in its morning bulletin in Kiev on Wednesday.
Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the destruction of the reservoir, both sides speak of a “terrorist attack” and an unprecedented environmental catastrophe. Kiev accuses Russian troops of having mined and blown up the hydroelectric power station and the dam. Moscow, in turn, claims the facility was destroyed by Ukrainian shelling and is calling for an international investigation.
Experts at the US Institute for War Studies (ISW) in Washington, given the evidence and the arguments, assume that Russia deliberately destroyed the dam. At the same time, they point out that a definitive assessment of responsibility is currently not possible.
more on the subject
Dam disaster in Ukraine: What we know – and what we don’t
Meanwhile, fighting continued. Two cities in Russia’s western Kursk region were without power on Wednesday and a man was injured following Ukraine dropped explosives at a substation near the border during the night, the region’s governor Roman Starovoyt said. According to the authorities, one person was killed by Russian artillery fire in Cherson. In the course of the past day, Russian troops have fired on the region several times, including the regional capital of the same name, Cherson, Governor Olexander Prokudin said via the short message service Telegram. One person was killed and another person was injured.
According to the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, two civilians were killed in a Russian drone attack in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy. Another person was injured, said Yermak on Telegram. An Iranian-type Shahed drone destroyed a private house and started a fire. The Russian armed forces fired on the border area several times during the night and in the morning, the President’s Office in Kiev said.
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