Flood waters from dam break expected to rise another meter within 20 hours
The flow of flood water from the destroyed Kakhovka dam as of the morning of June 7 was decreasing, but water continues to arrive, Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin has said.
Over the next 20 hours, the water level is forecast to increase by about a meter, he said.
No further emergencies were reported during the night. However, water has now begun to flood the community of Bilozerska to the west of the city of Kherson. In total, as of this morning, 1,861 houses on the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast have been flooded.
"Everyone is working to help people in the flood zone," said Prokudin.
“At night, we received 13 people, including five residents from the left (Russian-occupied east - ed.) bank. As of 6 a.m., 1,457 people have been evacuated, including 1,286 from the Korabel neighborhood (in the south of the city of Kherson city - ed.)”
Earlier, the state HPP operator Ukrhydroenergo said that the peak of the water spill from the Kakhovka Reservoir was expected by the morning of June 7.
Explosion at Kakhovka HPP — what is known
During the night of June 6, Russian forces blew up the Kakhovska Hydroelectric Power Station dam, triggering widespread flooding and posing a grave threat to downstream cities and towns along the Dnipro River, Ukrainian authorities say.
The flow of floodwaters was expected to peak around noon Kyiv time (GMT+3), prompting the Kherson Oblast Military Administration to declare an urgent evacuation.
The agency explained that the rapid decline in the water level in the Kakhovka Reservoir is an additional threat to the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP, as water from there is needed to feed the plant’s turbine condensers and safety systems.
Ukrhydroenergo stated that the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant was completely destroyed as a result of the explosion conducted by the Russians and cannot be repaired.
However, according to Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Southern Defense Forces, the dam was not completely destroyed.
At an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, President Zelenskyy ordered the evacuation of at-risk areas and the provision of drinking water to towns and villages served by the affected Kakhovka Reservoir.
About 80 settlements in the region face flooding threats, with 16,000 people on the west bank of Kherson Oblast in the critical impact zone. The Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation on the incident under the charge of ecocide.
President Zelenskyy called Russia's attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant the largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence has said that the Russian demolition of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant increases the threat of a nuclear disaster.
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