The breach in the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is set to have far reaching consequences, the United Nations warned.
With 18 million cubic metres of water set to swamp low-lying areas on either side of the Dnipro river, the unfolding humanitarian and ecological disaster has drawn attention away from a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Thousands of people have been evacuated from communities in the surrounding areas.
Flood waters are expected to peak in the coming hours, but UN humanitarian aid chief Martin Griffiths is warning of grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in the affected Kherson region.
Addressing the UN Security Council late yesterday, Griffiths warned that thousands of people in southern Ukraine were facing "the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while speaking at a briefing yesterday, said “35 to 70 towns will be flooded” along the Dnipro River after the blowing up of Nova Kakhovka dam.
“There will be big problems with drinking water even where there is no flooding. In the whole region,” he said.
Ukraine appeared on the cusp of a counteroffensive that many in Kyiv see as their best chance to defeat Russia's invasion.
Russia, meanwhile, had claimed without evidence it fended off a large armored attack in the country's eastern Donbas region. But the Kremlin had to dismiss as fake a putative address to the nation by President Vladimir Putin, in which he allegedly called on Russians to rally against invasion by Ukraine in the wake of strikes across the border in recent days.
Both countries were quick to blame the other as the cause of the disaster. Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up the dam, while Moscow said shelling by Kyiv's troops was the cause. Intelligence agencies for Ukraine's allies, including the US, are still assessing who is responsible, but are leaning toward Russia, a Western official had said.
Satellite images reportedly from Ukraine's Kherson region show widespread devastation there. 23 localities remained flooded, Ukrainian TV said in its latest news bulletin.
Local residents have been seen desperately trying to save their belongings or wading through flooded streets.
There are concerns about desertification, with agricultural land washed away by flood waters and the negative consequences of the flooding likely to be felt for years, as well as how this will affect the nuclear power station at Zaporizhzhia, which relied on the reservoir for its cooling water.