As a result of the dam break and the destruction of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station on June 6, the waters of the Dnieper began to flood the coastal areas. A day after the disaster, the cities of Oleshki and Novaya Kakhovka, part of Kherson, were flooded. The village of Korsunka was completely submerged. Part of the flooded territory is controlled by Ukraine, part by Russia.
According to the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration (OVA) Alexander Prokudin, on July 7, by 13:00 local time, about 1,700 people were evacuated. Three people are officially missing, police said . In Kherson alone, 1802 houses were flooded .
Prokudin said that the Russian army "continues shelling residential areas", creating additional risks for rescuers and people who are trying to leave the flood zone. In addition, the head of the OVA accused Russia of a hacker attack on the hotline of the regional administration, which receives calls from those in need of help.
Ukrainian photographers Konstantin and Vlada Liberov, who post photos and videos from Kherson on their Instagram , reported on June 7 that they had come under fire after posting stories with the sounds of explosions. According to Vlada Liberova, in some places the water in the city reaches up to the neck, while in other streets one can walk knee-deep in water. Judging by the published videos, the soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine and volunteers are engaged in the evacuation of residents. People are removed from roofs and balconies and taken out on boats and rubber boats.
The military is also using drones to deliver drinking water to people locked in their homes.
On the territory controlled by Russia, volunteers coordinate their actions in specially created chats, where they also send addresses and coordinates of people surrounded by water and waiting for help. Volunteer Olga <name changed> told The Insider that she and her comrades are collecting information on Oleshki, Hola Prystan and Kardashenka, located on the left bank of the Dnieper. The most difficult situation is in Oleshki, where many streets are completely flooded.
According to Olga, at first, volunteers advised residents to call the military administration and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but there was no help. In addition, the Russian military does not allow volunteers to enter the disaster zone. Then they decided to help at a distance, systematizing information. As Olga said, it is already known about 500 points where people are waiting in groups of 3 to 15 people, volunteers have compiled an interactive map to systematize information. There are many elderly, disabled people and women with children among those waiting for help.
“They are all in a very difficult situation, there are a lot of reports that people are already sitting in the attic and their feet are in the water. <…> A car can't get through there, and where it's possible, the military won't let you in. Volunteers with boats and paid carriers tried to get there today, but they didn’t let anyone in. We began to think about how to help those who are inside, it is clear that there are those who are trying to somehow gather people themselves, and we are also trying. If people write that they have a boat in their yard and if there is a strong man on the next street, then we tie them up so that they can get out of those places where everything is flooded, to where the land is dry.
There is, in principle, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, perhaps they are taking someone out, but this clearly does not correlate with the scale of the problem. We have at least a thousand people who sit on the roofs. They were not just flooded: those who are in a very difficult situation write when the clock counts. If you look in local chats where people correspond, then they are mainly taken out by those who organized themselves. ”
Meanwhile, the head of the occupation administration of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said on the Russia 24 TV channel that children were being evacuated from the flooded areas, while adults did not want to leave. The balance claims that there are no requests for help from residents, people are allegedly calmly waiting for the water to subside.
The fact that the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the occupied territories does not respond to requests was confirmed by another volunteer, Yaroslav, in an interview with The Insider. According to him, on June 6 he turned to the rescue service, since his father, who had recently suffered a stroke, is in Oleshki.
“They told me that they would work all night, that they sent a group there, but then it turned out that not a single boat went and no one took people away. In the evening, I realized that this would lead to nothing, created my own group, we began to write off, call up and do something for the evacuation. There were no boats or boats. We asked the guys for boats, whoever had them, searched all night, swam to the places where these boats lie. Only at 05:30 in the morning we managed to save the first people on Ozernaya Street in Oleshki. The house was already flooded up to the roof.”
According to Yaroslav, volunteers from neighboring regions and from Crimea volunteered to help the residents of Oleshki, offered to bring humanitarian aid, but no one was allowed through the checkpoints.
“I called the local military administration and they told me that they did not influence the situation and that this was the case of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations simply forbade the volunteers to pass for no reason and without explanation. In the end, they didn't let us through. People were with their boards, lifelines, vests, but they were simply not allowed to pass. They got to the nearest reservoir and already swam to the houses themselves, saved a couple of families and went back on this.
One of the volunteers, according to Yaroslav, was detained by the prosecutor's office, and his fate is unknown. Yaroslav claims that there are dead, but this information is hushed up. He also clarified that in Oleshki only the center, where the administration, the hospital and the stadium are located, is not flooded.
In Kherson, which is controlled by Ukraine, water continues to flow, according to The Guardian journalist Dan Sabbah, who arrived in the city on July 7, on his Twitter. According to local experts, at the peak, water was arriving at a speed of 4 centimeters per hour. It will fall more slowly, the journalist notes.
Volunteers save not only people, but also animals. So, Leonid and Valentina Stoyanov, veterinarians and founders of the center for saving wild animals in Odessa, arrived in flooded Kherson.
On the eve of the zoo, located on the territory of the recreation center "Kazkova Dibrova" ("Fairy Dubrava") in Nova Kakhovka, reported that the park was flooded and all the animals died. However, on July 7 it turned out that at least some of the animals had escaped. Parrots, flying squirrels, chinchillas and guinea pigs were overexposure from one of the employees.