The massive wall of water that has engulfed southern Ukraine is likely to have profound effects on the war in the region and the war itself.
The Kakhovka Dam provided power, drinking water and cooling for nearby nuclear plants. It may be some time before the full extent of the damage caused by its collapse is known.
Henrik Olander Hjalmarsson is the CEO and founder of Swedish hydrological modelling company Damningsverket AB. He said, “It’s a huge disaster.” He made a model last fall of what would occur if the dam burst – a wave of up to 12 feet that would rush down the river. But this damage is “much worse” because the water levels were already high in the reservoir before Tuesday’s destruction.
The dam has held back the Dnieper River for decades, a major river that cuts through the frontlines in southern Kherson between Russian and Ukrainian troops.
Both sides attributed blame, but it was not clear what exactly caused the breach. The people who live around the reservoir and dam are likely to suffer the most.
NBC News examines the potential damage.
Nuclear Plant Fears
Concerns were raised about the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, Europe’s biggest, which relies on water from the reservoir of the dam to cool six Soviet-era nuclear reactors.
Ukrainian and international officials have been expressing concerns about the safety of the Russian-controlled facility for months. However, these have mostly focused on damage or sabotage to the plant.
The lack of water could cause the reactors at the plant to melt and overheat if they were turned on. This could spread radiation across large areas of Ukraine, and possibly the entire continent.
Mark Nelson, the managing director of Radiant Energy Group in San Francisco, explained that since last year all reactors were shut down, they only needed a small amount of cooling. This is equivalent to one garden hose running on each.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed that there was no immediate danger, but this may only be true for as long as the reactors remain shut down. If the reservoir is drained, it will make it more difficult to bring the plant back to full power when the conflict ends.
Nelson stated that if the plant staff was prevented from topping off the cooling pool “heat could eventually build up inside the reactors which would damage them”. This could prevent them from being used ever again, which would be a major blow for Ukraine’s plans to recover its economy.
Drinking water and the Deluge
This danger will likely be weeks or months away. It is the immediate concern of the residents living near the dam who will now be faced with the 4.8 billion gallon water that officials had warned would be released if the structure fails.
Oleksandr Kharchenko, the head of Energy Industry Research Center, said that more than 500,000 people will “lose their homes, many of them won’t have access to clean water and some will lose electricity.” He said that several “large cities” depend on the reservoir to provide drinking water. It is also true of the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia.
According to the World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development (a Ukrainian nongovernmental organisation), almost 100 towns and villages will be inundated. The water will only begin to recede five to seven days after the flooding.
The deluge, which could affect a region rich in crops and known as Europe’s Breadbasket, would also disrupt irrigation for more than 600,000.00 acres of farmland, spreading potentially toxic sediment downriver. Eugene Simonov was the coordinator of the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group. He spoke in a September interview posted on the website of an independent organization.
He said that if the dam were to blow up, it would cause a large artificial flood, which would dump some of the Kakhovka reservoir’s water downstream.
