- Region:
- World
- Category:
- Politics
Russia-Ukraine war: evacuations under way near Kherson after Kyiv accuses Moscow of destroying dam
![Evacuations under way near Kherson after Kyiv accuses Moscow of destroying dam]()
Around 16,000 people could be affected and water will reach ‘critical level’ in coming hours, says Kherson governor Evacuations under way near Kherson after Kyiv accuses Moscow of destroying dam
Around 16,000 people could be affected and water will reach ‘critical level’ in coming hours, says Kherson governor
Communities downstream from the damaged dam are now facing the possibility of widespread flooding.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said some 80 towns and villages could be affected.
We’ve verified several videos from places in the Kherson region which are already being flooded, as seen on the map below.
The potentially far-reaching environmental and social consequences of the disaster quickly became clear as homes, streets and businesses flooded downstream and emergency crews began evacuations; officials raced to check cooling systems at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant; and authorities expressed concern about supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
The Nova Kakhovka dam supplies water to a swathe of southern Ukraine's agricultural land, including the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, as well as cooling the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The vast reservoir behind it is one of the main geographic features of southern Ukraine, 240 km (150 miles) long and up to 23 km (14 miles) wide.
