The Kakhovka Dam Of The Soviet Era Broken And Caused Floods To Cross The War Zone, Russia-Ukraine Accuse Each Other

Kakhovka Dam in Kherson, Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/Nataliya Shestakova)

JAKARTA - A large Soviet-era dam in the southern part of Russia-controlled Ukraine broke out on Tuesday, causing flooding across the war zone, according to Ukrainian and Russian forces.

"Both sides blame each other for carrying out attacks on the dam," Reuters reported on June 6.

Unverified videos on social media show a series of violent explosions around the Kakhovka Dam. Other videos show water surging through remnants of the dam with people around them expressing their shock, sometimes in rough language.

The 30-meter (yard) high dam and 3.2 km (2 miles) long was built in 1956 on the Dnipro River, as part of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant.

The dam has a reservoir of 18 km3 which also supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, as well as to the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is also under Russian control.

The Ukrainian military said Russian troops blew up the dam.

"Kakhovka (the dam) was detonated by Russian occupation forces," the Ukrainian Armed Forces Southern Command said Tuesday on its Facebook page.

"The scale of the destruction, speed and volume of water, and possible inundation areas are being clarified."

Russian news agencies said the dam, which was controlled by Russian troops, had been destroyed in the shooting. Meanwhile, a Russian-mounted official said it was a terrorist attack, a Russian term for an attack by Ukraine.