By Olha Chepil | 2024-01-15

KYIV -- The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southeastern Ukraine in June killed hundreds of people, according to doctors, witnesses and volunteers in the area.

Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up the dam, which crosses the Dnipro River, flooding the surrounding area with land-mine-contaminated water and leaving areas upstream without water supply.

The destruction caused $14 billion worth of damage and losses, according to an October report by the Ukrainian government and the United Nations.

Moscow has denied responsibility and Russian authorities claim only 59 people died.

Because of Russia's occupation of part of Kherson province, the tragedy's real scale is still difficult to calculate.

But locals say between 200 and 300 people may have drowned in the village of Oleshky alone.

In Oleshky, home to about 25,000 people before the war, the victims number at least in the hundreds, according to Volodymyr, who operated his own clinic in the town.

Volodymyr declined to publish his last name, but he told Kontur that when the Russians blew up the dam, his relatives and friends in Oleshky gave him reports about the situation in his hometown.

"This is a tragedy on the level of Bucha and Irpin," he said, referring to massacres committed by Russian troops in 2022. "After the dam was blown up, very many people died instantly in Oleshky. This is genocide. We must not be silent about this."

Corpses scattered throughout the city

Many residents had homes made of clay mix that washed away with the water. The wooden beams used to make the rooftops collapsed or were simply carried away by the flood.

"There were very many elderly people, people with disabilities, people with limited mobility, people living alone," Volodymyr said. "They all stayed in their homes. Very many of them died, but it's hard to say exactly how many. It will be possible to calculate by finding all these burial places."

The problem, he said, was that nobody warned the public about the dangers.

The Kakhovka dam, located above Kherson on the Dnipro River in the village of Novaya Kakhovka, burst on the night of June 6.

At the time, Oleshky received intermittent communication and had very poor internet. Many residents thought the water would recede quickly. And when it began to flow, the time to evacuate had passed.

The strong current capsized inflatable boats.

"In the city, several corpses were scattered at each apartment building," said Volodymyr. "Who is there to collect them if the water has not yet receded? And the water remained for a very long time, receding very slowly."

"Volunteers went around and picked up those they could save from rooftops. They saw a bunch of floating bodies. Not only people. There were many animals," he added.

According to Volodymyr, only about 2,000 of Oleshky's 25,000 residents remain. Entire districts and apartment buildings were destroyed, and battles are ongoing.

Death toll coverup

Ivan Antipenko, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent who lives in Kherson, was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the flooding.

He, too, heard about a large number of deaths on the Dnipro's left bank in Kherson province, now under Russian occupation.

"One man told me that he saw about 15 flood victims with his own eyes. And his friends also told him that they had seen many dead," Antipenko told Kontur. "Can you imagine the scale? It's unlikely that the exact number will be known while the Russians are there."

Antipenko said Russian authorities are hiding the real number of deaths. The Associated Press (AP) also reported this on December 28, citing several eyewitnesses.

The Russians controlled the issuance of death certificates, seized bodies not claimed by relatives, and threatened doctors and volunteers for disclosing information, according to the AP investigation.

"On the one hand, the occupation authorities covered up the scale. On the other hand, they themselves did not know the death toll," said Antipenko. "Indeed, [the Russians] all left. Only a few days later did Russian [rescue] services engaged with the situation. In the initial days, either people saved themselves, or Ukrainian State Emergency Service crews or Ukrainian soldiers went to the left bank and saved people."

Svitlana Serdiukova, who was the director of the Oleshky Primary Care Center at the time of the dam explosion, confirmed that the Russians tried to conceal the death toll.

Serdiukova backed up what the AP found: the occupation authorities assumed control of the issuance of death certificates and took away bodies.

They did not allow local medical workers or volunteers to collect them, she said.

"We provided death certificates for those who could be brought to the hospital so doctors could examine them and confirm drowning," she told Kontur, referring to the facility she ran at the time.

"But then the Russian authorities prohibited this and demanded that all these bodies be taken to Henichesk, to Skadovsk, or to wherever they took them to be autopsied. And it's no longer known how many died or from what."

In the early days, the bodies accumulated and decomposed from the summer heat, she said. Relatives turned to the city's medical workers because they did not know how to bury their dead.

Mass graves

In the first week after the flood, Serdiukova received about 15 death certificates electronically. At the time, she was conducting the registry remotely from government-controlled Ukraine. For all 15 victims, the cause of death was asphyxia by drowning.

"Everything looked very terrible. Even the photos of drowned people that I saw are really difficult to look at. It was summer and very warm. The stench of rot, blooming flowers -- it was all mixed in that air. Corpses floated in the water for days," remembered Serdiukova.

Many of the bodies could not be identified because they were swollen with water.

"I think there were very, very many victims there. But even we medical workers don't have the real number," said Serdiukova. "Also, many people are missing. Only the elderly stayed behind. Where they all went is unclear. We've lost contact with them. They lost their phones."

The AP investigation also learned that mass graves were dug for the victims. In one of them, 10-20 bodies were buried, according to local hospital workers.

The local occupation authorities moved corpses for autopsies to regions with doctors controlled by Russia.

"From what the locals told me, the dead were hauled away somewhere in trucks," Volodymyr said. "There was nowhere to bury them because 70% of the city was flooded. Only the downtown area remains. Where are you going to bury people? I was told that people were buried in the park. But there were even more bodies there -- and they took them away."