Ukraine: Dam Destruction's Catastrophic & Nuclear Consequences?

'Ukraine war: Dam Destruction's Catastrophic & Nuclear Consequences?'

Ukraine and Russia are blaming each other for the destruction of a dam near the city of Kherson.

Damage to the Nova Kakhovka is likely to have far reaching consequences.

The most immediate threat comes from flooding down river. The Ukrainian government has already asked people living in ten villages and parts ofasked people living in ten villages and parts of Kherson to evacuate. Unverified videos of flooding have started to appear on social media, including one that claims to show a beaver wandering around Kherson.

The leader of Russian occupied Crimea has also claimed that a canal that supplies fresh drinking water may be affected, potentially creating water shortages on the peninsula. Last year fears that the dam might be destroyed caused the local government to pump water from the canal into Crimean reservoirs.

And there are concerns that the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant might be affected.

The plant partly relies on the reservoir created by the dam. But Ukraine's atomic agency and the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency both said there was no immediate threat to the plant.