8/15/2023 0 Comments Chernobyl meltdown![]() ![]() The extent of the long-term damage depends on the movement of the front lines in an unpredictable war. Ukrainian authorities are testing the level of toxins in the muck, which risks turning into poisonous dust with the arrival of summer, said Eugene Simonov, an environmental scientist with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, a non-profit organization of activists and researchers. For decades, its flow carried the runoff of chemicals and pesticides that settled in the mud at the bottom. The reservoir, which had a capacity of 18 cubic kilometers (14.5 million acre-feet), was the last stop along hundreds of kilometers of river that passed through Ukraine’s industrial and agricultural heartlands. The waters slowly began to recede on Friday, only to reveal the environmental catastrophe looming. “The canal that supplied our water reservoir has also stopped flowing.” The long term “Today and tomorrow, we’ll be able to provide the population with drinking water,” he said. Dmytro Neveselyi, mayor of the village of Maryinske, said everyone in the community of 18,000 people will be affected within days. Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry estimated 10,000 hectares (24,000 acres) of farmland were underwater in the territory of Kherson province controlled by Ukraine, and “many times more than that” in territory occupied by Russia.įarmers are already feeling the pain of the disappearing reservoir. Enormous slicks seen in aerial footage stretch across the river from the city’s port and industrial facilities, demonstrating the scale of the Dnieper’s new pollution problem. Abandoned homes reek from rot as cars, first-floor rooms and basements remain submerged. ![]() Rainbow-colored slicks already coat the murky, placid waters around flooded Kherson, the capital of southern Ukraine’s province of the same name. Entire towns were submerged to the rooflines, and thousands of animals died in a large national park now under Russian occupation. Since the dam’s collapse Tuesday, the rushing waters have uprooted landmines, torn through caches of weapons and ammunition, and carried 150 tons of machine oil to the Black Sea. First it drowned, then, when the water left, it rotted.” “Everything that was in my house, what we worked for all our lives, it’s all gone. “The water is leaving before our eyes,” he told The Associated Press. The waves that stood at his doorstep a week ago are now a muddy walk away. Now, with the destruction of the dam, he is watching his livelihood literally ebb away. Until Monday, the waters were lapping into Medunov’s living room. They dropped dangerously low in winter and then rose to historic peaks when snowmelt and spring rains pooled in the reservoir. Whether deliberately or simply carelessly, the Russian forces allowed water levels to fluctuate uncontrollably. ![]() When Russian forces seized the Kakhovka Dam, the whole system fell into neglect. The six dams along the Dnieper were designed to operate in tandem, adjusting to each other as water levels rose and fell from one season to the next. ![]()
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