Major Ukrainian city issues water warning
The southern Ukrainian city of Krivoy Rog could soon face a severe water shortage due to the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, unless residents significantly restrict their consumption, local mayor Aleksandr Vilkul warned on Sunday.
In a statement on Telegram, Vilkul described last week’s dam breach, which resulted in huge swaths of land being flooded on both banks of the Dnieper River, as the “largest man-made disaster of its kind.” He said that the incident meant that the city’s southern water reservoir, a key source for about 70% of its population, was no longer being replenished.
Vilkul noted that the local authorities had been preparing for this contingency for over a year by filling the city’s reservoirs to their maximum capacity. However, the mayor said that even those preparations could not offset the impact from the disaster, and urged all residents to reduce water consumption by 40%.
“This is the case when it is really up to you how the situation will evolve. The first option – we do not save, and 70% of the city remains without water in a month. The second option is to save [water] and win time to carry out the necessary work,” he said.
Vilkul added that if water consumption is reduced, the city will begin to experience a deficit in a month and a half.
The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in Russia’s Kherson Region was breached last Tuesday, resulting in at least five people being killed and dozens injured, and triggering mass evacuation efforts across the entire region. Since then, Moscow and Kiev have traded accusations over who was to blame for the incident.
Novaya Kakhovka is situated on the left bank of the river and is controlled by Russia, while Ukraine holds the opposite side of the region. Ukrainian officials also reported that there were fatalities after the flooding on the right shore.
Commenting on Wednesday on the destruction of the dam, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine and its Western backers of gambling on a path of dangerous escalation. The Russian leader characterized the incident as a “barbaric act.”
Ukraine has insisted that its forces could not have blown up the structure as the power plant was being held by the Russian military. Officials in Kiev have also claimed that none of the missiles at their disposal could have caused so much damage, particularly given that the Soviet-era dam was designed to withstand a nuclear strike.
