Kiev, Jun. 11, (dpa/GNA) – The search continues for people missing following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said on Sunday, with 29 people still unaccounted for.
The ministry reported that on the right bank of the Dnipro, controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, 32 towns and villages with 3,784 houses were still under water. Some 1,400 emergency service workers were involved in rescue and cleanup operations following the rupture of the dam in the early hours of Tuesday, it said.
Evacuations were also reported to be proceeding on the Russian-controlled left bank of the river. Thousands of people living on both banks have been evacuated.
Water levels are falling, with the Dnipro at Kherson at 4.18 metres early on Sunday, more than half a metre lower than a day previously, Ukrainian authorities reported.
The operators of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station reported levels in the dam water were also dropping. They recorded 9.35 metres, more than seven metres lower that on Tuesday. It was hard to predict further developments, they said.
Ukraine accuses the Russian military of mining the dam and then destroying it with an explosion, while the Russian authorities say the dam, which was under Russian control, was hit by Ukrainian missiles.
Dozens of towns and villages were flooded, and 13 people are reported to have died in the ensuing disaster. The long-term environmental consequences remain unclear, as combat operations in the region continue.
The British Ministry of Defence said the dam collapse had “almost certainly severely disrupted” the main source of fresh water for the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea, in its latest intelligence update.
Crimea receives most of its fresh water from the North Crimean Canal, supplied by the Kakhovka Reservoir. “Water will soon stop flowing to Crimea,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.
However, the Russian authorities were expected to meet immediate needs “using reservoirs, water rationing, drilling new wells, and delivering bottled water from Russia,” the British defence experts noted.
“Communities on both the Russian and Ukrainian-controlled sides of the flooded Dnipro are facing a sanitation crisis with limited access to safe water, and an increased risk of water-borne diseases,” the ministry wrote.
Britain has been providing daily intelligence updates since the start of the war. Moscow accuses London of a targeted disinformation campaign.
In another expert assessment, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said the Ukrainian armed forces had achieved local successes in their offensive against the Russian army in the Zaporizhzhya region in the south of the country.
Gains were made in the west of the Zaporizhzhya region, to the southwest and southeast of the city of Orikhiv, the think tank said. In total, it said Ukrainian offensive actions were taking place along four sections of the front.
In contrast, the Russian military announced that it had successfully repelled the attacks there and in the Donetsk region around the town of Bachmut.
The Ukrainian air force reported on Sunday that six drones had been shot down in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions on the border with Russia. On Saturday, the Ukrainian air defence reported that two cruise missiles and 20 drones had been shot down.
It said Russia had fired 35 drones and eight missiles at targets in Ukraine – military and important infrastructure objects. The Russian attacks were directed against targets in Odessa, the Poltava region and in Kharkiv.
Russian regions also reported renewed shelling from the Ukrainian side. According to the authorities, two drones hit the Kaluga region. There was no initial information on casualties or major damage.
In the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, which has been under fire for days, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced on Sunday that a goods train with 15 empty wagons had derailed. There were no casualties, but regional train traffic had to be temporarily suspended.
The reasons behind the incident were initially unclear. In Russia, acts of sabotage are regularly committed against railway facilities in order to stop military supplies.
GNA