Thousands fled their homes Wednesday after the destruction of a Russian-held dam in Ukraine flooded dozens of villages and parts of a nearby city, sparking fears of a humanitarian disaster.
Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the Kakhovka dam being ripped open on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin calling the destruction a โbarbaric actโ, in his first public reaction.
The breach of the dam in southern Ukraine, which provides cooling water for Europeโs largest nuclear plant, took place as Ukrainian troops prepared to launch the offensive to recover lost territory.
Downstream from the breached Kakhovka dam, police and troops in Kherson were bringing people out from inundated areas in inflatable boats, most clutching only a few documents or pets.
Despite the evacuations, officials said Russian forces had kept shelling the residential neighbourhoods.
โWeโre used to shooting, but a natural disaster is a real nightmare,โ said Nataliya Korzh, 68, who had to swim part of the way to escape from her house.
โI wasnโt expecting that,โ she told AFP.
She emerged from a rescue boat barefoot, her legs covered with scratches, her hands trembling from cold.
โWe no longer have a home,โ said Dmitry Melnikov, 46, who was evacuated with his five children.
โWe have been here since the beginning of the war, we survived the occupation,โ said Melnikov, whose family was being evacuated to the southern city of Mykolaiv.
โBut now we have no home, no nothing, no work. We donโt want to leave, but what can we do?โ
Erdogan proposes probe
The water was waist-deep in the central streets of Kherson and the ground floors of buildings were submerged.
As the mutual recriminations continued, Moscow accused Kyiv of blowing up a section of the Togliatti-Odesa pipeline. Russia used it before the war to export ammonia, and its re-activation had been requested as part of talks for a deal on Ukraine grain exports.
Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of firing at the pipeline.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed an international commission to investigate the damage after speaking with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky said on Twitter that he had sent Erdogan โa list of Ukraineโs urgent needs to eliminate the disasterโ.
Putin denounced the breach as โa barbaric act which has led to a large-scale environmental and humanitarian catastropheโ, according to the Kremlin.
Britainโs Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told AFP Wednesday that London was unwilling to apportion blame yet and was waiting for โall available factsโ.
He added, however, that Russia bore ultimate responsibility as โthis event is a direct repercussion of Russiaโs invasion of Ukraineโ.
Almost 6,000 people have been evacuated from the flooded regions, according to statements from Russian and Ukrainian officials: some 4,000 on the Russian side and nearly 2,000 on the Ukraine side.
The governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said that ongoing shelling was endangering rescuers and locals.
โEnvironmental bombโ
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the damโs destruction would hamper efforts to locate landmines in the affected region.
โWe knew where the hazards were,โ said Erik Tollefsen, head of the ICRCโs Weapon Contamination Unit. โNow we donโt know. All we know is that they are somewhere downstream.โ
The United Nations warned that hundreds of thousands could be affected on both sides of the frontline.
Zelensky expressed dismay at a lack of help from the UN and Red Cross.
โThey are not there,โ he told Germanyโs Bild Daily, adding that he was โin shock because I think they are the forces who have to be there to save peopleโs livesโ.
Earlier Wednesday he accused Russia of having detonated an โenvironmental bomb of mass destructionโ, saying authorities expected up to 80 settlements with tens of thousands of residents to be flooded.
โThis crime carries enormous threats and will have dire consequences for peopleโs lives and the environment,โ Zelensky said.
But the explosion would โnot affect Ukraineโs ability to de-occupy its own territoriesโ, he added.
Last October, Zelensky accused Russia of planting mines at the dam, warning that its destruction would spur a new wave of refugees into Europe.
โAtrocious Actโ
Kyiv said 150 tonnes of engine oil had spilled into the river, and the agricultural ministry said about 10 thousand hectares of farmland on the right bank of the river would be flooded and โseveral times moreโ on the left bank.
China expressed โserious concernโ over the dam destruction, EU chief Charles Michel called it a โwar crimeโ and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg condemned it as โoutrageousโ.
French President Emmanuel Macron said late Wednesday he would send aid to Ukraine โwithin the next few hoursโ in response to the crisis. He condemned the โatrocious actโ of the damโs destruction.
Russia has said the dam was partially destroyed by โmultiple strikesโ from Ukrainian forces and urged the world to condemn Kyivโs โcriminal actsโ.
The reservoir formed by the Soviet-era dam on the Dnipro River, built in the 1950s, provides cooling water for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant some 150 kilometres (90 miles) away.
Ukraine has warned that the breach endangers the safety of the nuclear plant, though the UN nuclear watchdog agency said there was โno short-term riskโ.
