‘Everything is dying, we’ve watched it disappearing’: Dam disaster brings new crisis to war-torn Ukraine

As the overnight sleeper from Kyiv clanks into Zaporizhzhia, a Cossack march erupts from the train station’s crackly loudspeakers, reminding passengers that this city in southeastern Ukraine was a storied stronghold of the nation’s warrior caste.

Other first impressions are also telling: a factory chimney towers over the train tracks, but like much of Zaporizhzhia’s heavy industry, the site it serves now appears to be idle; and police guarding the exit to the station check the passports of all new arrivals, and take photographs of many, before letting them disperse into a city that is just 50km from the front line of Ukraine’s war with Russia.

“Yesterday was quiet, the day before was loud,” taxi driver Anton says as he pulls out of the car park, using the Ukrainian shorthand for light and heavy spells of the Russian shelling and missile fire that has badly damaged Zaporizhzhia and nearby towns and villages.

“The problem yesterday was the stench in the city,” he adds with a grimace. “It smelled like something had died.”

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What is dying is the huge Kakhovka reservoir, much of the life in its dwindling waters and along its rapidly drying banks, and the human activity that it fostered – from farming, shipping and industry that are mainstays of the region’s economy, to the simple pleasures of swimming, fishing and strolling on its shores that generations of locals took for granted.

When the Kakhovka dam south of Zaporizhzhia collapsed on June 6th, almost certainly due to an explosion caused by Russian troops occupying the site, it sent 18 billion cubic metres of water surging down the Dnipro river to the Black Sea, flooding swathes of the Kherson region, killing dozens – maybe hundreds – of people and forcing thousands to flee.

Upstream, the Kakhovka reservoir that covered more than 2,000sq km started to drain away, the Dnipro and its tributaries in Zaporizhzhia and neighbouring villages began to fall, and more and more bare riverbed – littered with dead fish and molluscs and potentially riddled with heavy metals and other toxins – was exposed to a scorching summer sun.

“This was a place that people came to walk and fish and swim; somewhere they enjoyed spending time in the middle of their city,” says Tetiana Zhavzharova, director of Zaporizhzhia-based environmental group Ekosens, looking out at a vast expanse of bare, rutted earth where the Dnipro flowed until the dam was destroyed.

“The Dnipro was rich with fish. Some species, like the sturgeon, died when it was dammed in the Soviet days, but more common types lived here,” says Zhavzharova, who has photographs on her phone of friends swimming in the river just days before the disaster.

Now trees and reeds that were partly submerged stand high and dry, boats lie beached and people walking on the riverbed appear dwarfed and bewildered by the moonscape as they try in vain to reach the distant, glinting remains of the river.

“It’s just horrific,” says local woman Iryna, as her daughter Olha ignores her warnings and strides out across the riverbed until it becomes too soft to hold her and she sinks up to her thighs in thick mud.

“We used to swim here as kids. And look what’s happened to the boats over there. My grandad used to keep a boat here. Everything is dying, we’ve watched it disappearing. The water is just going further and further away and it’s awful,” she adds. “Water transport will die, too; the barges that carried grain and other cargo along the river, and the tourist boats. It’s all over.”

Ukrainians revere the Dnipro, Europe’s fourth-longest river, but it has long been abused by industry and agriculture under Soviet rule and, since 1991, governments of independent Ukraine.

The Soviets used the mineral and water resources of southeastern Ukraine to develop sprawling metal, chemical and engineering works, which disgorged much of their waste into a river that was being tamed by the construction of a series of towering dams and hydroelectric power stations, and tapped by irrigation networks to water collective farms.

“There are industrial centres all along the river – Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Kremenchuk, Kyiv. And for decades, until water cleaning systems were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, they just discharged industrial and household waste into the river. So large deposits of all this built up on the riverbed. That’s partly why it smells like this,” Zhavzharova says, as a hot wind off the southern steppe spreads the putrid stench through the city.

There may be heavy metals and other toxins in there, and that dust will be carried on the wind through Zaporizhzhia and into people’s lungs

The immense volume of the Kakhovka reservoir diluted people’s concerns about possible contact with pollution, whether when swimming, fishing or eating catch from the water, but as acres of silt are exposed, they are increasingly fearful over what it may contain.

“We have very hot summers here and it could reach 70 degrees Celsius on the dry riverbed. There may be heavy metals and other toxins in there, and that dust will be carried on the wind through Zaporizhzhia and into people’s lungs,” warns Zhavzharova.

South of the destroyed dam, landmines and other ordnance from 16 months of full-scale war were dispersed across the flood zone and swept into the Black Sea. Upstream, scientists worry that the radioactive legacy of another disaster – the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown – could lurk in sediment on the bed of the Dnipro, which north of Kyiv is fed by the Pripyat river that runs beside the now defunct power plant.

“We have talked for years about what is in these deposits on the bottom of the river ... and now we need to analyse the soil and water to understand quickly what is there and take measures to deal with it,” says Olexiy Angurets, an expert at environmental group Clean Air for Ukraine.

“Are there radionuclides there from the Chernobyl disaster? Will this territory become a dust bowl containing chemicals that will pollute the area?” he asks. “We need the involvement of international experts to understand and deal with this, because it is really an unusual case. Dams have been destroyed before, but the consequences are so huge here that I think very few cases in the world can compare.”

Angurets says it will take months to get a clearer idea of how southeastern Ukraine, and many aspects of life here, will be affected by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

There’s less and less water in the river, so now the fish and shellfish and algae are dying. That’s why there’s this bad smell. Last night we closed all the windows in the house because of the stink

How will animals and plant life in the river and along its shores, including endangered species, adapt to the crisis? Can new water sources be found for farming and heavy industry? Where will the Dnipro make its new banks now the Kakhovka reservoir is gone?

There are also urgent issues to be addressed, including establishing a sustainable water supply for the 600,000 people of Kryvyi Rih, who have been urged to cut their daily consumption by 40 per cent to avert a bigger water crisis in the height of summer.

The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, about 50km from the city on the eastern bank of the Dnipro, also relies on the river for water, but experts say its cooling ponds are stable and can meet its needs for now. A sharper fear is that Moscow’s troops could follow up the dam disaster by causing a radiation leak at the plant.

Angurets warns that this combination of factors – the continuing war, constant insecurity and the growing scarcity of water and its impact on households, farming and industry – could prompt people to abandon the region.

“We should at least find a way to get water to people,” he says. “I see this as the main social aspect of the problem. We could see new refugees because of this – up to 1 million people could leave these areas if it is not possible to solve this.”

The crest of the Kushuhum district, south of Zaporizhzhia, includes a prancing horse, crossed sabres and a sturgeon, to reflect the Cossack history and fishing traditions of the three villages that it comprises: Balabyne, Malokaterynivka and Kushuhum itself.

“There’s less and less water in the river, so now the fish and shellfish and algae are dying. That’s why there’s this bad smell. Last night we closed all the windows in the house because of the stink. And then, on top of that, there’s the heat,” explains Viktoria Kryvenko, secretary of Kushuhum council.

“About 18,000 people live in the whole district. Some left when the war began but came back again. I did that. And about 1,700 displaced people are registered here. We get hit by shelling pretty often. Last August a woman in Kushuhum was killed when a missile landed in her garden. And a month ago they hit Malokaterynivka and 170 houses were damaged,” she continues.

Driving through the village, Kryvenko points to a parting between trees and cottages and says: “That’s where the river should be. It was such a nice view before.” Now only a vast expanse of brown mud is visible: “The water’s gone away,” she adds. “We’ve got war and no water.”

The level of the Dnipro and a tributary called the Konka has fallen so far that local irrigation systems are dry, and the little water now flowing through village pipes is only enough to meet the needs of households nearest the shore.

“The water system already struggled to cope with every house having a washing machine. Now when people come home and start washing and watering the vegetables in their gardens, there’s not enough to go around. People near the river can be without water for a few hours, but those in higher streets might not have water for days,” Kryvenko says.

“Volunteers brought us seeds and potatoes to plant, but what’s the point if there’s no water to put on them? We need to drill two new wells and install pumps, but we have to drill deep to reach the water and it’s very expensive for us.”

At what was the water’s edge, but is now a jumble of rocks bordering a vast brown plain dotted with puddles, Lyudmyla Volyk looks out through the heat haze towards the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

“The Russians are destroying everything. They’ve turned the Kakhovka reservoir into the Kakhovka desert. What if the power station is next? Why is the world scared of them? Why does no one stop them?” says Volyk, the head of Malokaterynivka village, whose daughter is a refugee in Limerick.

“The things we’re living through – when in the middle of night they shell you and you don’t know what to do or where to run; when houses are burning and you could be burned alive just trying to find the door. Four houses were totally destroyed last month when they shelled us,” she recalls of an attack on May 10th that injured eight people.

Volyk and Kryvenko list other atrocities committed by Russia during its invasion, including the torture and murder of civilians in Bucha and Irpin outside Kyiv, and Volyk concludes: “Only animals could do things like this. I just want Russia to collapse and disappear forever.”

Kryvenko looks out at the wasteland where the Dnipro once flowed and says: “That was all water. It was so beautiful and looked like the sea, and now it’s a desert. It tears at your soul to look at it.”