Due to the detonation of the dam by the Russian troops, the reservoir of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP) may disappear within three to four days, predicted Ihor Sirota, general director of the company Ukrhidroenerho.
According to the basic scenario, in the next three to four days, the water in the Kakhovka reservoir will drain completely and the bottom of the water body will be exposed, the official explained.
It can be determined by the speed of water flow.
The water level decreases by 15-20 centimeters per hour, but it can also happen faster.
However, if the lower part of the dam stays in place, water can remain in the reservoir up to a level of three meters, said Sirota.
Both Ukrainian and Russian experts warn that
the vanishing of the water in the reservoir can lead to an ecological disaster.
“The most terrible thing is the possibility, that after the reservoir is completely drained, the toxic deposits will be exposed, and the dust from it will be blown around. This is a real chemical bomb,” warned Russian ecologist Alexei Medvedkov, assistant professor at Moscow State University.
According to reports, Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka HPP dam in the Kherson region on Tuesday, the 6th of June, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the region’s military administration, said.
He called on the residents of the endangered areas to evacuate.
The flood-prone area on the Ukrainian-controlled right bank of the Dnieper has about 16,000 residents, Prokudin later said. Several places have already been flooded, officials said.
The district administration organizes evacuation buses. There will also be an evacuation train.
The Kahovka HPP is under the control of Russian troops, but after the dam was blown up, the territories on the right bank of the Dnieper, controlled by Ukraine, and on the left bank of the Russian-occupied territory are flooded.
The South command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces has announced that, according to the information at its disposal, evacuation is also being organized in the territories occupied by Russia.
The damage caused to the Kahovka HPP is so bad that it will not be possible to restore it, the Ukrainian state company Ukrhidroenerho has announced. The HPP engine room was also blown up.
According to Ukrhidrenerho, in four days the Kakhovka reservoir will be empty.
The General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine has initiated a criminal case for ecocide.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky added that not a single meter of Ukrainian land should be left to Russia, as it uses every bit of it for terrorism.
Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, stated that the explosion of the Kahovka HPP is probably the biggest technological disaster in Europe in recent decades, which threatens thousands of civilians.
“This is a terrible war crime,”
Kuleba emphasized on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the former advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine, Oleksy Arestovych, expressed the opinion on Twitter that the explosion of the HPP shows that Russia no longer hopes to maintain control over the left bank of the Dnieper and that there may be serious problems with Crimea’s water supply after the dam is blown up, so also the question arises whether Russia still hopes to hold Crimea.
Read also: VIDEO | Kakhovka dam over the Dnieper blown up