In the riverside areas of Kherson, the water of the Dnieper River is already flooding in through the windows.
Ukrainian Sergei Rybaltsenko answers the phone out of breath. He says that he is currently evacuating people in a flood zone.
Rybaltsenko is an aid worker and lives in Kherson. He has been assigned to evacuation duties on the southwest edge of Kherson, right on the river bank.
– I’ve already driven to pick up people twice. We also carried the dog out of the water. When I just drove out from under the flood, the water was already above knee height, Rybaltsenko says.
He posts a video of himself splashing in the water carrying a birdcage.
Rybaltsenko says that he woke up this morning to a phone call.
– They called me and told me that there was a bang. I turned on the news and realized that now we have to go and evacuate people.
According to Rybaltsenko, now the water is almost up to the windows in the houses, and at any moment the water starts flooding in through the windows.
– The atmosphere is scary.
Theater director in Hersonissos: electricity and water are working
A few kilometers away in the city center, the atmosphere is calm. This is how he tells tells on the spot by phone Oleksandr Knyga.
Knyga is a theater director in Hersonis.
Electricity and water work as normal. Herson is the largest city in the region and is located at the mouth of the Dnieper river delta. Before the war, there were almost 300,000 inhabitants.
Russia captured Kherson, but the Ukrainian army liberated the city last fall.
– I just walked around the city, and there were even people in cafes, Knyga says from the center of Hersoniss.
According to Knyga, the people of Kherson have taken the news of the dam explosion quite calmly.
– Orcs blew up the dam at five in the morning. First there was a small panicked wave of calls, but very soon the situation calmed down.
For Orcs, Knyga means Russian soldiers.
Knyga says that the people of Kherson are worried, but about the residents of the opposite shore. They are more affected by the flood. Vastaranta is located lower than Herson.
– We are worried about the city of Olešky, which is on the opposite bank. We have relatives and acquaintances there. Even there, the situation was somewhat normal just a moment ago.
According to theater director Knyga, the areas directly on the river bank in Hersonis are at risk. Most of the inhabitants of the beach have moved away, however, because the Russians are concentrating artillery fire on the area.
Knyga adds that there have been more Russian artillery attacks than usual for a couple of days.
People knew how to expect this kind of thing and take the situation very calmly, Knyga says about the attitude towards the flood of destruction.
– We are already so used to everything. We are unbeatable.
In his opinion, the Russians panicked about the dam breaking more than the Ukrainians.
– Panic is their reaction. The opposite bank was full of trenches, and now they crawl out of their holes because the water rises there, says Knyga.