By: Jy Hung Ong

At about 2:30 am, June 6, the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine exploded. Evidence gathered during the explosion points to a suspect: Russia.

After the Kakhovka dam exploded, a torrential current erupted over the dam and flooded nearby areas. However, the real problem hid beneath the waves. Inside the dam, a small passageway is reachable from the dam’s machine room. Because the dam was built during Soviet times, Russia had all the pages of its engineering design and knew where the passageway was. Inside the passageway is where an explosion had possibly detonated. This passageway was also called a gallery.

People have already suffered from this calamity. “Thousands of people were displaced by flooding from one of the world’s largest reservoirs, which was vital for irrigating farmland considered the breadbasket of Europe. The disaster puts global food supplies for millions at risk and could threaten fragile ecosystems for decades,” the authors of an article for the New York Times wrote.

The destruction of the dam was not accidental. It probably did not collapse on its own. Satellite and seismic detections of an explosion in the area suggest that the most likely cause was an explosive charge inside the gallery, according to two American engineers.

Experts also support this theory. “If your objective is to destroy the dam itself, a large explosion would be required. The gallery is an ideal place to put that explosive charge,” Michael W. West, an expert in dam safety and failure analysis, said.

After the dam’s collapse, the flood which followed was sudden and long-lasting, not subsiding for more than a week. “We live on the fourth floor, so it didn’t reach our apartment, but the first floor was completely flooded,” said Vasyl, a 64-year-old who lived in the town of Hola Prystan, about 60 miles from the dam.

Many younger civilians of the town fled, leaving behind older residents. After the flood, many of the older people, unable to climb their roofs or leave their houses, drowned.

The death toll remains unknown.

Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/world/europe/ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse.html