Ukraine dam flood toll hits 41 in Russia-controlled area
AFP :
The toll from flooding sparked by a breach of a huge Ukrainian dam has risen to 41 in areas under Russian control, an official said Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, the number of dead has risen to 41,” said Andrei Alekseyenko, a senior official with Russian occupation authorities.
In areas under Ukrainian control, at least 16 people have died and 31 are missing, according to latest figures from Kyiv.
The June 6 breach of the Russia-controlled Kakhovka dam inundated huge swathes of the Kherson region, forcing thousands to flee and sparking fears of an environmental disaster.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of blowing up the dam on the Dnipro River, while Russia has blamed Ukraine.
The breaching of a major dam in southern Ukraine will have a catastrophic effect on locating landmines, the Red Cross has warned.
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from parts of the Kherson region as water continues to surge down the Dnipro river which divides Russian and Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Both Ukraine and Russia blame each other for sabotaging the Kakhovka dam.
Three flood-related deaths have been reported in the Russian-held Oleshky.
Yevhen Ryshchuk, the town’s exiled Ukrainian mayor, told public broadcaster Suspilne he believed there would be more casualties.
The BBC has been unable to verify claims by Ukrainian and Russian officials.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has visited the flood-hit region of Kherson where he said the priority was to “protect lives and help people as much as possible”.
During his visit on Thursday, the Ukrainian leader also went to a medical facility and met people evacuated from the region.
The president earlier appealed for international effort to help people and accused agencies of failing to help, including the UN.
Erik Tollefsen, head of the Red Cross’s weapon contamination unit, warned dislodged mines had sparked major concerns not just for Kherson residents, but also those coming to help.
“We knew where the hazards were,” he told AFP news agency. “Now we don’t know.
“All we know is that they are somewhere downstream.”
Nataliya Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s military South Command, told Ukrainian TV: “Many anti-infantry mines [in Russian-seized areas] have been dislodged, becoming floating mines.
“They pose a great danger,” she said, explaining that they were likely to explode if they collided or hit debris.
The dam in Russian-controlled Nova Kakhovka was breached in the early hours of Tuesday, leading to mass evacuations as water levels downstream rapidly increased.
Officials say 30 towns and villages along the river have been flooded and nearly 2,000 homes have been submerged in the city of Kherson – the region’s capital controlled by Ukraine.
One woman, who arrived in Kherson on a rescue boat from the Russian-occupied east side of the river, explained how quickly the situation escalated after she heard about the disaster early on Tuesday.
“We managed to collect our things but the water kept rising. At that moment I was cooking buckwheat and my feet were already underwater. It started to flood really fast,” Kateryna Krupych, 40, told the BBC.
