president zelensky has warned the destruction of the dam risks leaving hundreds of thousands of people without healthy water. extensive damage has been caused to buildings and farmland. the united nations has said the breach of the dam is one of the most significant incidents of damage to civilian infrastructure since the start of the russian invasion, and will have grave and far reaching consequences. moscow has denied destroying the dam, which it controls, instead blaming ukrainian shelling. the pictures you can see there are from one of the towns, these are coming to us live as a sum of the residents look on and i think one of the rescue boats, dinghies, hasjustarrived, and i think one of the rescue boats, dinghies, hasjust arrived, and and i think one of the rescue boats, dinghies, hasjustarrived, and i presume this is part of the evacuations that have been taking place for hours. our first report comes from jon donnison. breached, the nova kakhovka dam, now almost unreco
has been shelled all these months. the situation clearly in the city is critical, there are some parts of it which are a lot worse than the pictures that you are looking at now. i have seen scenes from an area where the dnipro and kakhovka rivers join, which are basically underwater, the water has reached rooftop levels, so there are neighbourhoods of kherson that are completely submerged. and that very much echoes the scene elsewhere along the dnipro, where, in these little communities on either side of the river, you are seeing similar scenes, with the river suddenly massively expanded as a result of this huge volume of water that is flooding down from what was a vast reservoir above the dam. that reservoir above the dam. that reservoir is emptying and sending great quantities of water down the
great surprise. i don t think it is a deliberate attempt to the rescue. it is simply that kherson has been shelled all these months. the situation clearly in the city is critical, there are some parts of it which are a lot worse than the pictures that you are looking at now. i have seen scenes from an area where the dnipro and kakhovka rivers join, which are basically underwater, the water has reached rooftop levels, so there are neighbourhoods of kherson that are completely submerged. and that very much echoes the scene elsewhere along the dnipro, where, in these little communities on either side of the river, you are seeing similar scenes, with the river suddenly massively expanded as a result of this huge volume of water that is flooding down from what was a vast reservoir above the dam. that reservoir is emptying and sending colossal quantities of water down the dnipro river and into the black sea and causing