KYIV (Reuters) – About 600 square kilometres, or 230 square miles, of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine was under water on Thursday following the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, the regional governor said.
Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said 68% of the flooded territory was on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River. The “average level of flooding” in the Kherson region on Thursday morning was 5.61 metres (18.41 ft), he said.
“We’re already working. We will help everyone that has ended up in trouble,” he said in a video statement of the flooding caused by the collapse of the dam, which is about 60 km upstream from Kherson.
Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Ukraine blame each other for the destruction of the Russian-occupied dam on Tuesday.
“Despite the immense danger and constant Russian shelling, evacuation from zones of flooding is continuing,” Prokudin said.
He said almost 2,000 people had left flooded territory as of Thursday morning.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address late on Wednesday that it was impossible to predict how many people would die in Russian-occupied areas due to the flooding.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Timothy Heritage)
