Amid the disaster response, artillery shelling rang out as people scrambled to get out of the danger zone, climbing onto military trucks or rafts.
The flood’s force was expected to slacken as the day wore on, officials said Wednesday, but water levels were expected to rise by another meter over the following 20 hours and engulf more downriver areas along the banks of the Dnieper.The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam and reservoir, one of the largest in the world and essential for the supply of drinking water and irrigation to a huge area of southern Ukraine, lies in a part of the Kherson region occupied by the Kremlin’s forces for the past year.
Some local residents spent the night on rooftops. Others, scrambling to flee the rising waters, were evacuated by buses and trains with the belongings they could carry. Addressing who might be to blame, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, noted its earlier assessment that “the Russians have a greater and clearer interest in flooding the lower Dnieper despite the damage to their own prepared defensive positions.”
Underscoring the war’s global repercussions, wheat prices jumped 3% after the collapse. Ukraine and Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.