The governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said that about 16,000 people were in the "critical zone" on the Ukrainian-controlled right bank of the river. He said people were being evacuated for districts upstream of Kherson city and would be taken to bus to the city and then by train to Mykolaiv, and to other Ukrainian cities, Khmelnytskyi, Odesa, Kropyvnytskyi, and Kyiv.
The disaster happened on the second day of Ukrainian offensive operations likely to mark the early stages of a mass counteroffensive. It could affect any Ukrainian plans for an amphibious assault across the river.
"The purpose is obvious: to create insurmountable obstacles on the way of the advancing [Ukrainian army] … to slow down the fair final of the war," a Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mikhailo Podolyak, said on Twitter. "On a vast territory, all life will be destroyed; many settlements will be ruined; colossal damage will be done to the environment."
"The purpose is obvious: to create insurmountable obstacles on the way of the advancing [Ukrainian army] … to slow down the fair final of the war," a Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mikhailo Podolyak, said on Twitter. "On a vast territory, all life will be destroyed; many settlements will be ruined; colossal damage will be done to the environment."
David Helms, a former US air force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist who has monitored the dam said on Twitter: "The Russians allowed the reservoir to fill to record levels; if the dam failed "naturally", it certainly failed due to 6 weeks of over-topping and stress on the structure."
The areas most under threat of flooding are the islands along the course of the Dnipro downstream of Nova Kakhovka and much of the Russian-held left bank in southern Kherson. Earlier modelling of such a disaster suggested Kherson city would not take the brunt of the flood, but the harbour, the docklands and an island in the south of the city are likely to be inundated. It is unclear how many people would lose their homes.
There could be two further dramatic side effects, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant upstream could lose access to water for cooling as the reservoir drains away, and the water supply to Crimea could also be severely affected.
Four of the six reactors at the nuclear plant are completely shut down, and two are on "hot shutdown", producing a small amount of energy for the plant itself and the neighbouring town.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a tweet it was aware of the reports and that its experts at the plant were monitoring the situation. It added there was "no immediate nuclear safety risk at plant".
