ODESA, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he visited the flood-hit Kherson region on Thursday, where rescue efforts would subsequently be stepped up the destruction of a dam on the Dnipro Riverwhen he called for “a clear and rapid global response” to the disaster.
An explosion early Tuesday at the Kakhovka Dam sent a torrent of water from an upstream reservoir down the river, inundating much of the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson and dozens of settlements on either side of the Dnipro River, an active war zone that bisects Russian-Ukrainian-controlled territory.
“I visited a border crossing where people are evacuated from flooded areas,” said Mr Zelenskyy a statement on the messaging app Telegram, in which he thanked the rescue workers. “Our job is to protect life and help people as best we can.”
As of Thursday morning, the average level of flooding in the Kherson region was more than 18 feet, Ukrainian regional officials said, adding that about 230 square miles remained submerged in a region covering 11,000 square miles.
32 percent of the underwater area is on the Ukraine-controlled west bank and 68 percent on the Russian-controlled east bank, it said Oleksandr Prokudinthe head of the regional military administration of Ukraine in Kherson.
Russian-appointed officials in the occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, which borders the dam, said five people died in the flooding, Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported reported. Dozens more in Russian territory have been hospitalized, officials said, but the full extent of the casualties may not be known for several days until the flooding recedes.
The Dnipro River marks a dividing line between Russian and Ukrainian forces in parts of the region, and officials and local residents said Russian shelling across the river hampered humanitarian efforts.
On Wednesday, Mr Zelenskyy called for a “clear and swift global response” to the floods and criticized international organizations for being “unable to take action”.
“Each death there is an indictment against the existing international mosaic, against international organizations that are no longer in the habit of saving lives,” Mr Zelensky said on Telegram.
In times of peace, it is not uncommon for international aid organizations to mobilize quickly and organize relief efforts, as they did after the deadly earthquakes in Syria and Turkey in February. But in a war zone, providing aid is much more complicated.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Twitter On Wednesday, the organization said its teams in Ukraine were working “around the clock” to help and evacuate those affected by the floods and were assessing what could be done to support humanitarian relief.
Local residents said that since the dam broke early Tuesday, intense shelling of the Ukrainian-controlled area in the flood zone has continued. Some reported fleeing the shelled area. Mr Prokudin said that on Tuesday Ukraine registered 353 shells from Russian mortars, artillery, missile systems, drones, tanks and planes in the region.
On Thursday, Ukrainian authorities said they had evacuated nearly 2,000 people, including more than 100 children, from the Kherson flood plain and set up nine evacuation points. However, the state rescue service also warned of the danger of mines and unexploded ammunition being thrown away by flooding.
On the Russian-held side of the river, about 4,500 people had been evacuated as of Thursday, Russia’s state news agency Tass said on Telegram, citing Kremlin-appointed officials in the region. The total number of people brought to safety remains only a fraction of the roughly 41,000 people on both sides of the Dnipro River who Ukraine estimates are at risk from the floods.
Speaking to Mr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would send humanitarian aid to Ukraine “very quickly”, including a first convoy of around 10 tonnes of supplies that Kiev had asked for, including water treatment equipment and portable cisterns .
Aurelia Breeden and David Kurkovskiy contributed reporting.
