By Rostyslav Averchuk
Lviv (EFE).- Two years after explosions destroyed the Russian-occupied Kakhovka dam, the death toll from the catastrophic flood remains unknown, with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians still grappling with its devastating impact on agriculture, environment, and infrastructure in the country’s south.
Billions of liters of water surged downriver after an explosion breached the dam on the night of Jun. 6, 2023, inundating 70 settlements and parts of Kherson city within hours.
The destruction of the Kakhovka reservoir, one of Ukraine’s largest, has rendered 94% of the irrigation channels that sustained agriculture in the arid Kherson region unusable.
“Water is the foundation of life. Its loss, caused by the enemy, was a strategic blow and an ecological tragedy whose effects will linger for years,” Igor Yosypenko, a farmer from Beryslav district, told EFE.
The lack of water has exacerbated the impact of harsh weather, causing “massive losses of crops,” estimated at 55,000 hectares, this spring and pushing the local agricultural industry to the brink of collapse, Yosypenko said.
The disaster has also devastated the livelihoods of tens of thousands of locals who relied on the reservoir to grow vegetables (from tomatoes to watermelons) renowned across Ukraine.
Much of the former reservoir bed is now covered by a fast-growing willow forest, offering refuge to thousands of birds and prompting some ecologists to praise nature’s resilience and question the need for future reconstruction.
However, others warned that without restoring the reservoir, in some form, the region’s economy will continue to deteriorate.
Enduring damages
The United Nations estimated immediate damages at 14 billion dollars, encoming losses to agriculture, infrastructure, cultural heritage, and housing.
Over 3,200 homes, including nearly 120 multi-apartment buildings, were flooded on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the Dnipro River.
Larysa Polska, a Kherson resident, saw her home submerged up to the roof, as captured in a photo shared on local social media the day after the dam’s collapse. The damage was catastrophic.
“I lost everything I had earned in my life, but I hold onto hope that justice for this and other crimes of this malignant country will come,” Polska told EFE, expressing the anguish shared by many locals.
On Friday, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional istration, said that two years after the disaster, some buildings could still be saved, but restoration was impossible amid daily Russian shelling and drone attacks.
Russia behind the destruction
The full circumstances of the dam’s destruction remain unclear.
However, expert testimonies, intercepted Russian military communications, and seismic data have led Truth Hounds, a Ukraine-based investigative NGO, and other analysts to conclude that the dam was deliberately destroyed by explosions from inside at the time Russian forces fully controlled it.
Some analysts point out that the dam was destroyed to disrupt Ukraine’s summer counter-offensive in the south, launched two days earlier, and prevent a potential Ukrainian crossing of the Dnipro River into Russian-held territory.
No closure for the families
Two years on, the exact death toll also remains unknown.
On the Ukrainian-controlled western bank, 32 people died, and 39 went missing.
Despite Russian authorities reporting 59 victims, multiple witnesses suggest hundreds may have perished on the eastern bank, which faced worse flooding due to its lower elevation.
Viktoria, a displaced resident of Hola Pristan, told EFE that her grandparents, 84-year-old Maria Scherbyna and 83-year-old Oleksiy Klymenko, drowned while clinging to a tree in their yard.
Neighbors were trapped on rooftops for days, with volunteer rescue efforts hampered by the Russian military’s prior confiscation of local boats.
Later, Russian authorities pressured local doctors to avoid listing drowning as a cause of death, Viktoria said, echoing testimonies collected by Ukrainian human rights defenders, which has hindered determining the toll of the disaster and giving closure to the families of the victims. EFE
ra/dgp
