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Collapse of major dam in southern Ukraine triggers emergency

KHERSON, Ukraine — A major dam in southern Ukraine collapsed Tuesday, flooding villages, endangering crops in the country’s breadbasket and threatening drinking water supplies as both sides in the war scrambled to evacuate residents and blamed each other for the destruction.

Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station, on the Dnieper River in an area that Moscow has controlled for more than a year, while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian bombardment in the contested area. It was not possible to reconcile the conflicting claims.

Russian and Ukrainian officials used terms like “ecological disaster” and “terrorist act” to describe the torrent of water gushing through the broken dam and beginning to empty an upstream reservoir that is one of the world’s largest. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “the largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, ahead of an emergency Security Council meeting, called it a “monumental humanitarian, economic and ecological catastrophe” and “another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

The environmental and social consequences quickly became clear as homes, streets and businesses flooded downstream and emergency crews began evacuations; officials monitored water for cooling systems at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant; and authorities expressed concern about drinking water supplies in both Ukrainian and Russian-controlled areas.

In the downstream city of Kherson, angry residents cursed as they tried to preserve their pets and belongings. A woman who gave her name only as Tetyana waded through thigh-deep water to reach her flooded house and rescue her dogs. They were standing on any dry surface they could find but one pregnant dog was missing. “It’s a nightmare,” she kept repeating, declining to give her full name.

Both Russian and Ukrainian authorities brought in trains and buses to move residents to safety. About 25,000 people in Russian-controlled areas and 17,000 in Ukrainian-held territory should be evacuated, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor Viktoriia Lytvynova said on Ukrainian television. Neither side reported any deaths or injuries.

A satellite photo Tuesday morning by Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press showed more thanover 1,900 feet missing from the wall of the 1950s-era dam.

The dam break, long feared by both sides, added a stunning new dimension to Russia’s war, now in its 16th month. Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 621 miles of front line in the east and south.

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