10.06.2023
Ukraine Dam Explosion Is ‘Worst Environmental Disaster Since Chernobyl’
The destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam significantly changes the geography and topography of the Kherson frontline sector in southern Ukraine. Russian and Ukrainian forces reportedly engaged in skirmishes in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Russian and Ukrainian officials each accused the other state of damaging an ammonia pipeline that runs through Kharkiv Oblast and causing an ammonia leak.
- The Russian-controlled Kakhovka dam partially failed just before 0300hrs local time on 06 June 2023. By 1200hrs, the entire eastern portion of the dam and much of the hydro and utilities infrastructure was swept away. The water level in the Kakhovka Reservoir was at a record high before the collapse, resulting in a particularly high volume of water inundating the area downstream.
- Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which sits 120km away from the dam, is highly unlikely to face immediate additional safety issues as a result of the dropping water levels in the reservoir.
- The dam’s structure is likely to deteriorate further over the next few days, causing additional flooding.
- Ukrainians face homelessness, disease risk as floods crest from burst dam, Reuters reports. “Ukrainians abandoned inundated homes on Wednesday as floods crested across the south after the destruction of a huge hydroelectric dam on front lines between Russian and Ukrainian forces, with their presidents trading blame for the disaster. Residents slogged through flooded streets carrying children on their shoulders, dogs in their arms and belongings in plastic bags while rescuers used rubber boats to search areas where the waters reached above head height.
- Ukraine said the deluge would leave hundreds of thousands of people without access to drinking water, swamp tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land and turn at least 500,000 hectares deprived of irrigation into “deserts”.
- Credit: DW
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
