In pictures: The collapse of Ukraine's Nova Kakhovka dam
Servicemen of the National Guard of Ukraine deliver food to residents in a flooded area in Kherson on June 8.
Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images
Updated 11:06 PM EDT, Thu June 8, 2023
The Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine collapsed early Tuesday, June 6, forcing more than 1,400 people to flee their homes and threatening vital water supplies as flooding inundated the region.
Kyiv and Moscow have traded accusations over the Russian-occupied dam's destruction, without providing concrete proof that the other is culpable. It is not yet clear whether the dam was deliberately attacked or whether the breach was the result of structural failure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the situation as "an environmental bomb of mass destruction," as concerns turned to the dangers to wildlife, farmlands, settlements and water supplies from the floodwaters and possible contamination from industrial chemicals and oil leaking from the hydropower plant into the Dnipro River.
The critical dam is the largest reservoir in Ukraine in terms of volume. It's the last of the cascade of six Soviet-era dams on the Dnipro River, a major waterway running through southeastern Ukraine. There are multiple towns and cities downstream, including Kherson, a city of some 300,000 people before Moscow's invasion of its neighbor.
Rescue workers evacuate an elderly woman and her husband from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson, Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 7.
Angelina Kopayeva, 12, looks at family photographs that were laid out to dry in her home in Kherson on June 7.
Rescuers evacuate a local resident from a flooded area in Kherson on June 7.
Flooded streets in Kherson on June 7 following the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
A woman is evacuated from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson.
Dogs stand in floodwaters in Kherson on June 7.
A satellite image shows the collapsed dam on Tuesday, June 6.
Red Cross workers drive along a street in Kherson on June 6.
Local resident Tetiana holds her pets, Tsatsa and Chunya, as she stands inside her flooded house after the destruction of the dam.
Local residents stand on an embankment of the flooded Dnipro River as smoke rises from shelling on the opposite bank.
Local residents after an evacuation of a flooded area in Kherson.
A view shows the House of Culture on a flooded street in Nova Kakhovka.
People make their way through floodwaters in Kherson.
People in, and on, an army truck as emergency responders work during evacuations.
Local residents comfort each other following their evacuation from a flooded area.
Rescue workers attempt to tow boats carrying evacuated residents on June 6.
The roof of a house in the flooded Dnipro River in Kherson.
Evacuees wait for a train at a railway station in Kherson on June 6.
A view of the breached dam on June 6.
Local resident Oleksandra walks around her house on a flooded street in Kherson.