The exploded dam has flooded Kherson. Many are too exhausted to leave
Standing in jazzy pyjamas by her front gate, Nadya tries to work out whether the stinking flood water is about to creep over her garden wall. Her husband is disabled and doesnt want to leave their home, but the neighbours house downhill is already submerged up to the roof. She has been trying to call them to offer help but no one answers. Nadya, 68, got up three times in the night to check the water level against a metal bollard. Some people in Kherson track it with scraped stone or scrawled chalk lines. She is sure its still rising. The couples daughters call every half hour to try to persuade them to leave, but Nadyas husband cant walk and thinks he will be a burden if they have to stay with someone. The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday morning has plunged thousands of people in and around Kherson the most severely affected city into calamity. Those who were willing and able left the most flooded areas quickly; those who remain either believe they have nowhere to go or are hindered by age or physical impairment. Dogs roam the streets, lost, disorientated and alone, their fur tangled with mud and grass seedsThe tap water is not drinkable, some homes have no electricity or running water. Telephone lines are down and mobile signal is patchy. Window frames and sections of fence mingle with winter jackets and velvet cushions in the murky flood water. Some of the debris has washed up on the shores of Odessa, 200km away. Dogs roam the streets, lost, disorientated and alone, their fur tangled with mud and grass seeds. [They] bark through the night from rooftops, said Nadya. Theyre stuck. On the edge of a flooded roundabout in Kherson opposite the bridge to one of the islands in the district of Ostriv, a rescue party sends out dinghies and motorboats to scout among the rooftops for the stranded. Its the worst affected part of the city and also the closest district to Russian-occupied territory on the other side of the river, leaving it exposed. Ostriv has suffered the worst of the heavy bombardments since Kherson was liberated last November. Fittingly, the official name of this islet is Quarantine Island. Rescuers wear wetsuits or galoshes, with a flak jacket on top, as Russia continues to target the areaEmergency services and volunteers have travelled to Kherson from all over Ukraine. Theyre helping pets as well as people, loading soggy cats and shivering dogs onto rubber dinghies. During heavy shelling, animals get scared, but the possibility of escape keeps them alert. With the water surrounding them, they act more timidly. They sense that they are trapped, that there is no way out. One old dog could no longer stand up by itself. The moment it got on a rescue boat, it collapsed. Volunteers do their best to keep the pets out of the sun, but struggle to know where to put them all. Many have already been taken to shelters across the country. Sadly, no one was able to save the animals at Nova Kakhovka zoo all except the birds are said to have drowned. Rescuers wear wetsuits or galoshes, with a flak jacket on top. Despite the desperate need to help the dozens of settlements along the Dnipro river that are thought to be affected, Russia continues to target the area. Since the dam was blown up, Kherson has been attacked seven times. On Thursday morning President Volodymyr Zelensky, accompanied by soldiers, paid a surprise visit to the main evacuation point, where he was briefed by the head of the local administration. Shortly afterwards, everyone was urged to leave the area due to rumours that shelling would start. That afternoon a rocket crashed into the water a few feet away from the evacuation point and another hit a building nearby. One person was killed and three were injured, including a 93-year-old man who suffered a shrapnel injury to the head while on an evacuation boat. Rescue teams believe they were targeted deliberately. They wouldnt leave at first because they didnt see water, then it came and kept on rising and they started to screamThe rocket landed metres from Sergiy Hertzovas home. Hertzova, who is in his 60s, had stripped off that morning on a grass verge, wading into the water to rescue his cats from his half-submerged house. He told me hed recently moved from another part of the city, as Russian bombardments had left his old area with no electricity. Another woman, originally from Azerbaijan, broke down in tears as she described how this was the second time she had been forced to move since the start of the war. The first time her home had been destroyed by a Russian shell. Fire-engine-red amphibious vehicles, their huge wheels churning through the floodwater, transport elderly and vulnerable people to waiting paramedics. A woman helping to co-ordinate the rescue effort told me that only 20% of the people stuck in Kherson have so far been evacuated. Many of them had not wanted to leave, saying they had nowhere to go, so they stayed, hoping the waters would subside. Volunteers bring them food, water and medicine, and staff an emergency hotline. One man from Kherson put on his wetsuit and swam from house to house, retrieving belongings. Thousands have left Kherson since the start of the war. Many who remain have nowhere else to go, and some underestimated the scale of the disaster as it was happening. Oksana Zatsarynna, 39, who works for the council, explained: They wouldnt leave at first because they didnt see water, then it came and kept on rising and they started to scream. Even then, she said, some have chosen to stay. They tell friends and family to just bring food packages to send with the volunteers on the boats. Flooding like this would be a disaster in peacetime, but war brings with it a legion of other problems. Landmines have been swept up in the water, exploding at random. Those in occupied areas say the Russian administration has done little to help them. Many people had not wanted to leave, saying they had nowhere to go, so they stayed, hoping the waters would subsideI met a Ukrainian commander, Roman Kostenko, whose unit has been using drones to drop emergency supplies, including water and battery packs, to those stranded in Russian-held territory. His soldiers are also carrying out covert rescues. Kostenko showed me videos on his phone of people being helped from rooftops onto boats. In one, a young boy hangs from an attic window calling for help. The team, taking a huge risk travelling to enemy territory to help people, throw him a rope and pull him onboard. A soldier gives him water. Later the boy called him Santa, said Kostenko. Liz Cookman is a journalist based in Ukraine, covering the human cost of the conflict. Additional reporting by Arjun Dodhia PHOTOGRAPHS: Andre Luis Alves