Ukraine has accused Russian forces of blowing up a major dam and hydroelectric power station, causing a ‘catastrophic’ flood that could displace hundreds of thousands of people and cause a nuclear disaster by cutting off cooling to a nuclear power plant.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry confirmed this morning that the Kakhovka dam over the Dnieper river in the south of the country was damaged by several explosions and called for residents of 10 villages on the river’s right bank, as well as parts Kherson city downriver, to evacuate their homes. 

Terrifying footage from the scene showed how village streets and fields near to the dam have already been swamped by the deluge as a Russian-installed local mayor warned that the water level would continue to rise for another 72 hours and claimed he expected 40ft high floods in some places.  

Ukrainian authorities have previously warned that the dam’s failure could unleash 18 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) of water and flood Kherson and dozens of other towns and settlements, home to hundreds of thousands of people. 

Environmental security expert Maksym Soroka warned the potential damage the flooding could cause ‘can easily be compared to [an] atomic bomb explosion’, given the devastation that could occur if the dam is broken completely. 

And the World Data Centre for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development – a Ukrainian nongovernmental organisation – estimated that nearly 100 villages and towns would be flooded in total. 

The cause of the blasts is not yet clear, though Ukraine warned late last year that Russian forces had mined the dam as they retreated from Kherson and Ukraine’s state hydroelectric company said the plant was destroyed by an explosion in the engine room – suggesting it was attacked from within rather than by external strikes.

President Volodymyr Zelensky will now urgently convene his Security Council on Tuesday after the explosion at the dam which provides vital cooling at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The explosion at the dam has sparked concerns of a possible meltdown at the plant if the reactors cannot be cooled.

As tens of thousands of Ukrainians flee their homes and the potential for nuclear disaster ramps up…

• Ukraine’s state hydroelectric company said the Kakhovka plant was totally destroyed by an engine room blast
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said separately that up to 80 settlements were at risk of flooding
• Pictures and videos on social media show that towns close to Kherson have already been overrun by floods
• Kyiv officials alleged that Moscow destroyed the dam in order to slow down its long-awaited counteroffensive
• Zelensky said that Russian forces must be ‘expelled from every corner’ of his nation for their ‘terrorist actions’
• Moscow meanwhile has blamed Kyiv’s forces for the strikes on the dam which is in Russian-held territory