Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the evacuations had been ordered with immediate effect after a major dam and hydroelectric plant in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson were destroyed on Tuesday (6) local time.
There are “about 80 settlements in the flood zone,” Zelensky posted on Telegram after an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council.
He went on to outline the timeline of events before emphasizing that all towns and villages in the region must be supplied with water.
Zelensky said the explosion took place at 2:50 am on Tuesday, local time (20:50 GMT) when “Russian terrorists carried out an internal explosion of the structures of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant”.
Russian authorities have denied their involvement in the destruction of the Nova Kakhova dam.
A total of 885 people have been evacuated from the region so far amid fears of widespread devastation.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry earlier said that Ukrainian authorities were helping people on the liberated west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson, adding that they “are concerned” about people on the occupied east bank.
Flooding in occupied Ukraine
Meanwhile, the mass of water is already reaching cities in southern Ukraine, in an occupied region. A Russian-appointed mayor said the city of New Kakhovka was submerged, triggering a wave of evacuations amid fears of widespread devastation.
“The city is flooded,” Vladimir Leontyev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1. The city administration said on Telegram that a local emergency regime was introduced in the urban district of Nova Kakhovka.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry announced mass evacuations in liberated areas on the west bank of the Dnipro River near the dam, adding that they “are concerned” about people on the Russian-occupied east bank.
mutual accusations
Russian and Ukrainian officials trade accusations over responsibility for the incident. “The Russian army committed another act of terror,” said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Ukrainian-appointed military administration of the Kherson region, in a video on Telegram. “He blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. The water will reach a critical level in five hours. Evacuation in the danger area has already begun.”
On the other hand, a Russian-installed official in New Kakhovka blamed the collapse of the city’s dam on Ukrainian attacks, according to Russian state news agency TASS. A drone video emerged on Monday (5) showing a deluge of water gushing from a sizable breach in the dam.
(Posted by Fábio Mendes, with information from Katharina Krebs, Anna Chernova, Olga Voitovych and Sebastian Shukla of CNN)
Source: CNN Brasil
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