Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said hundreds of thousands of people were without normal access to drinking water
The Russia-appointed mayor of the occupied city of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, said seven people were missing. The city sits near the dam.
The head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, tweeted about “concerning developments” in the wake of the dam breach and said he will travel next week to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which sits upstream. IAEA said Tuesday there was “no immediate risk” to the safety of the plant,” whose six reactors have been shut down for months but still need water for cooling.
The dam — one of the world’s biggest in terms of reservoir capacity — retained a volume of water nearly equivalent to that of the Great Salt Lake in the United States.Russia has controlled the dam since the early days of the war, and Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling it. Ukraine said the troops occupying it detonated explosives last fall that damaged three sluice gates, which help regulate water levels. Signs of damage to the gates were evident in late May.
The Ukrainian company that manages the dam and power plant estimates that it will take about four days for the reservoir to reach equilibrium and stop discharging massive amounts of water.As floodwaters swelled, both Russian and Ukrainian authorities ordered evacuations from among at least 80 towns and villages at risk on both sides of the river, though neither side reported any deaths.
Experts warned about the possibility of an environmental disaster for wildlife and ecosystems — in Ukraine and beyond.The biggest impact of the breach is likely to be upstream, said Mark Mulligan, a professor of physical and environmental geography at King’s College London and co-leader of the Global Dam Watch, a project that monitors dams and reservoirs.
Since last fall, the lower portion of the Dnieper has made up an important part of the front line that stretches more than 1,000 kilometers .
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