Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said the flood waters raging through the lower Dnipro River valley brought with them sewage, oil, chemicals and possibly anthrax from animal burial sites
The first one or two storeys of houses and people's yards were underwater and an emerald green church was semi-submerged, with the tops of trees poking out from the water in places.
Mines uprooted and dispersed by floodwaters surging downstream from the breached Kakhovka dam across swathes of southern Ukraine could pose a grave danger to civilians for decades to come, the Red Cross said.