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Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of blowing up a major dam and hydroelectric power station in a part of southern Ukraine they control, threatening a massive flood that could displace hundreds of thousands of people, and ordered residents downriver to evacuate.
Russian news agency Tass quoted an unspecified Russian government official as saying the dam had “collapsed” due to damage. Moscow-installed authorities in the region claimed the dam was partially destroyed by “multiple strikes” overnight, unleashing an “uncontrollable” flow of water, Agence France-Presse reported.
Ukrainian authorities have previously warned that the dam’s failure could unleash 4.8 billion gallons of water and flood Kherson and dozens of other areas where hundreds of thousands of people live, as well as threatening a meltdown at a nearby Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
Ukraine’s state atomic agency said the dam’s destruction put the plant at risk but the situation there was under control, according to the Reuters news agency. The International Atomic Energy Association tweeted that there was “no immediate nuclear safety risk” at the plant.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis.
Reuters
Reuters says he wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the Russians are “terrorists” and the dam’s destruction “only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land. Not a single meter should be left to them, because they use every meter for terror.”
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry wrote on Telegram that the Kakhovka dam had been blown up and called for residents of 10 villages on the river’s right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.
Footage from what appeared to be a monitoring camera overlooking the dam that was circulating on social media purported to show a flash, explosion and breakage of the dam.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted to Telegram shortly before 7 a.m. local time (midnight EDT) that “the Russian army has committed yet another act of terror,” and warned that water would reach “critical levels” within five hours.
Zelenskyy moved to convene an emergency meeting of the country’s security and defense council following the dam explosion, the council’s secretary, Oleksiy Danilov, wrote on Twitter.
Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Zelenskyy predicted that Russia would destroy the dam in order to cause a flood.
Authorities, experts and residents have for months expressed concerns about water flows through – and over – the Kakhovka dam.
In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.
By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro River, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply. The Kakhovka dam – the one farthest downstream in the Kherson region – is controlled by Russian forces.
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