The True Cost Of Ukraine's Dam Disaster | True Cost | Insider Business

[Music] in just one day water levels Rose by several meters in towns and Villages Downstream of Ukraine's destroyed Nova kahovka Dam but the worst is yet to come as the flood water recedes there's the threat of pollution and disease and there's even the chance this part of the country will turn into a desert but what does this disaster mean for the course of the war and

rooftops now the challenge of resettling thousands of people who've already faced the horrors of occupation and Russian shelling water is as challenging and has always been a challenge in her son electricity has been a challenge access to food is a challenge so now the situation is only getting worse and the copying strategies or copy mechanism for this population is already really low thousands will want to

return once the levels drop but fuel spills and sewage is likely to have contaminated sources of groundwater and this could lead to an outbreak of water-borne diseases like cholera and typhoid the picture on the harder hit Left Bank occupied by Russia is harder to gauge but satellite images before and after tell a sorry tale there are reports of people here being left to fend for themselves

dozens of people are believed to be missing on both sides of the river there are other dangers in the water minefields left by Russian occupiers before they retreated from the right Bank of the denipro last year have been flooded the Halo trust has identified 5 000 mines in the mikalayev region just in the past month the minds might not only move but they might also fluctuate

in terms of the way they're laid which proposes another risk for our staff that that they need to be prepared for once we're able to clear the minds the Nova kahofka Dam has for decades supplied water to the surrounding Farmland via a network of canals is [Music] [Music] while the initial threat to crops was from flooding the prospect now is drought the level of the kahovka

reservoir has dropped below the so-called Dead Zone the point below which water is no longer flowing into irrigation canals Ukraine is massively reliant on a agriculture the dam flooding the area is going to have a huge impact on productive Farmland in that region currently but then also in the long term the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture has said that farmlands that are relying on the reservoir are

you know at risk of drying out and turning into desert that may include russian-controlled Crimea whose water comes mainly by way of this Canal close to the punctured Dam is a longer term do as a well in the even longer term than that there is a water provision to the zaparusia nuclear power plant the zephyridgeian nuclear power station needs water to keep its reactors cool even

though all six are in shutdown mode and that water comes from an artificial Lake which is fed by the rapidly shrinking Reservoir so far the iaea has said there is no critical threat to the power station because the lake holds enough water for several months but being on the front line of a war means that losing water or the power for its pumps is always a

possibility the result could be a meltdown Ukraine is calling the disaster the worst environmental catastrophe since Chernobyl this area was home to Nature reserves rare animal species as well as a zoo now all gone while countless dead fish lie Exposed on the shrinking shores of the reservoir Downstream dead animals even parts of people's homes a washing up on the shores of the Black Sea with Ukraine's

long-awaited counter-offensive underway the flooding has made a strike south of her son almost impossible Ukraine is definitely Limited in the areas of Entry of where of where it can attack it's not impossible but it has definitely hindered the Ukrainian counter-offensive on top of that I think it's a massive distraction for the ukrainians because the ukrainians are now more focused on managing a humanitarian disaster and less

focused on perhaps a military operation within weeks Ukraine's largest lake will revert back to the river it once was but the Damage Done to the landscape and the people who lived along its banks Downstream will be felt for years [Music]