Flooding subsided after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, but the debris carried down the Dnieper River turned Odessa’s Black Sea coast into a dump and a graveyard for animals. This is what the Ukrainian authorities warned.
“Many mines and explosive objects are floating in the sea and washed ashore,” Ukraine’s interior ministry said, adding that border guards were monitoring a “sea of fish” in the area.
The collapse of the dam in southern Ukraine on June 6 was one of Europe’s biggest industrial and environmental disasters in decades. The water destroyed entire villages, flooded farmland, deprived tens of thousands of power and clean water and caused enormous environmental damage. It is still impossible to say whether the dam wall collapsed after sabotage, or whether the breach may have been caused by structural failure. Several Western officials blamed Moscow for the collapse.
A total of 2,699 people, including 178 children, were evacuated from the threatened settlements in the Kherson region. Swimming and fishing are prohibited in the region and people are advised to drink only bottled water.
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, revealed that due to the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, 700,000 Ukrainians may experience a shortage of drinking water. He also warned that what happened would inevitably lead to lower Ukrainian grain exports and higher food prices around the world.
2023-06-11 19:05:00
#Kyiv #collapse #Kakhovka #dam #turned #Black #Sea #landfill #graveyard #animals
