We got in touch with residents of Russian-occupied Nova Kakhovka who were awakened by explosions on the night of 6 June, when the dam of the Kakhovka Hydropower station collapsed from what Ukraine says was a Russian detonation. Here are their stories.
"We have islands between the left and right bank of the Dnipro, and water there gets stale. Apparently, the rush of water got it flowing out," Tetiana told.Others in the group also heard the water rushing and trees being broken. Tetiana saw signal rockets being fired - "by the soldiers in trenches on the shore."
"And then we understood that something terrible had happened. We could not believe it. And around 5 AM we saw the video and understood that a catastrophe has happened."
What does Tetiana think happened to the dam?Breaking. Russian troops have blown up the Kakhovka HPP dam.
Evacuation of locals at risk of flooding is underway and Zelenskyy is convening a NSDC meeting. 🎥 https://t.co/ryEn69RPeN pic.twitter.com/h0TjSb7KZK — Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) June 6, 2023
"There's, of course, a 0.000001% possibility that it collapsed by itself. One, it's too big a coincidence, all those explosions, one by one. Two, I was born in this city and lived here all my life. And we all know the history of the construction of this hydropower plant. It was built from ultra-strong concrete. The piers were projected to withstand not only an earthquake, but a nuclear strike, because of the fear of nuclear strikes in the USSR. In the 2000s, I was commuting to my studies through the dam to Beryslav. And they decided to replace the road pavement, because it had been around since the 1950s, so it needed to be replaced for safety. Their goal was to demolish the asphalt, well, it was not asphalt but the concrete that was used to build the Kakhovka hydroelectric station itself, its pillars. They couldn't break it, do you understand? It was like iron. And there were so many rockets fired at that unfortunate power station, both ours and theirs. Well, it didn't collapse despite all that. And here, only once, supposedly, Ukrainian rockets came in and it simply cracked. You could theoretically imagine rockets damaging the sluice gates. But in the video of the damage, you can see the building of the machine section, such a long, long building which was also constructed from ultra-strong materials. It just split apart like a building built from Legos, which then went underwater. A rocket couldn't split the building into three parts like that. It could only happen from the inside. Again, this is just my personal opinion," Tetiana says.
Dam of Kakhovka hydropower plant significantly, but not fully, destroyed - 🇺🇦Army Spox Humeniuk
Says it's visible that damage resulted from internal detonation, not strike, but from an internal detonationhttps://t.co/dUUF3bqOJf 🎥 Early video of damage to the dam shared on TG pic.twitter.com/pAa0vvOjRH — Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) June 6, 2023
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"If it was incoming fire, I would have heard it. But there was no incoming fire, it was just some sort of push and then explosion. Maybe the dam indeed broke through by itself. I'm no expert, it all needs checking. But it's the second year that we are living here throughout artillery strikes; I know the sound of incoming fire, and there was no incoming fire," Serhiy tells.The dam was indeed damaged from earlier strikes, but the construction was designed to withstand very powerful explosions, Serhiy says.
"I doubt that it could have been simply damaged by rockets or something else; you can see that the bridge is completely gone; I can suppose that it was some special detonation."Central Nova Kakhovka was flooded, as was the waterfront area. Now, the water level has subsided in the city; as per Serhiy, Russian soldiers are breaking into and occupying the flooded houses that were abandoned by locals. But Russian-occupied villages downstream were totally flooded, with only volunteer rescuers offering help to flood victims stranded on the roofs of their houses.
The names of our interlocutors were changed for s ecurity reasons. We can provide audio recordings of the talks for journalists upon request.
Related:
- Frontline report: Kakhovka flooding prompts Ukraine to evacuate troops from Kherson islands
- Russians blew up Kakhovka Dam using explosives planted there last fall – Danilov
- Ukrainian dam engineer rules out self-destruction of Kakhovka dam
- Kakhovka dam to deteriorate further over next days, causing additional flooding – UK intel
- Kakhovka Dam was built to withstand nuclear strike, couldn’t be destroyed from outside – Ukrhydroproject engineering company
- Zoo that survived Russian occupation destroyed by Kakhovka flooding; all animals dead