Produced by: Hitansh Gaur
The crucial Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region of the Ukraine was breached overnight as water was seen gushing through the broken parts of the dam since early morning.
Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam in the Kherson region on Tuesday. The dam is located in the Russia-controlled region of the Ukraine and is part of a hydro-electric plant.
The damage is said to be severe as Russian media is reporting the town of Nova Kakhovka as being submerged under water. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the breach could affect as much as 80 towns and villages and evacuations are underway. Mayor of the Kherson region also warned the residents that the water will reach a critical level in 5 hours.
Kakhovka dam is crucial because it supplies water to a host of communities upstream and also to Europe’s largest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia. Water from the reservoir also supplies the Crimean Peninsula to the south, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
The Kakhovka reservoir is built on the Dnipro River with a height of 30 metres and 3.2 kilometres wide. The reservoir holds an estimated 18 cubic kilometres of water, which is about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA.
Head of the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA has said that a lack of water at Zaporizhzhia could affect its emergency diesel generators, but the situation at the nuclear plant is said to be under control as of now.
The Kakhovka dam has been a point of interest for both the parties since the beginning of the war. Russia captured this dam during the early days of their invasion in February 2022 and has controlled it ever since. When Ukraine regained the control of Kherson in November last year, photos emerged showing significant damage to the dam.
The Kakhovka dam is built on Ukraine’s massive Dnipro River, where the water levels have been rising since April this year. Locals near the Kakhovka dam told Reuters in May that the water has been rising since April, sometimes by even 30 cm in a day.
President Zelensky had earlier warned about the effects on the ecosystem if the Kakhovka dam gets breached. Ukraine’s military intelligence also said that effects of such an ecological disaster will go far beyond the Ukrainian borders and disrupt the entire Black Sea region.