Ukraine war: About ‘42,000 people at risk’ from Nova Kakhovka dam flooding as levels rise by four ft in one night
Around 42,000 people are at risk from the destruction of Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka dam as rescue efforts continue to save people trapped by the rising waters, according to Ukrainian officials.
At least seven people are missing while up to another 100 people are trapped in the town of Nova Kakhovka, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
About 42,000 people were at risk from flooding in Russian and Ukrainian-controlled areas along the Dnipro River, said Ukrainian officials, as the United Nations aid chief warned of “grave and far-reaching consequences”.
The RIA news agency reported the town’s Russian-installed mayor, Vladimir Leontyev, as saying that “thousands of animals” at the Nizhnedniprovsky National Nature Park had also been killed, and that the scale of the disaster was “huge” with the area at risk of contamination.
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Dam destruction could be most damaging single event of war
Whole villages and towns engulfed by torrent of water
Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the destruction of the dam, which has sent floodwaters across a war zone and forced thousands to flee.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford, reporting downriver from the dam, said the water level had increased by “four feet” overnight amid a “sense of desperation” in the area – and experts think the water will keep rising for the next “four or five days before it starts to recede”.
She said: “There’s an awful lot more boats this morning than we saw at all yesterday. It was just civilians using their own boats and anything that could get wading through the water to get to their pets, to get to their homes, to try to get to their elderly relatives, many of whom have stayed behind despite all the bombing and shelling.
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Sky’s Alex Crawford reports from one of Kherson’s main squares which is ‘awash with water’
“We reckon (the water level) has probably come up about four feet overnight. So substantially more flooded, which I guess is why the police and the military are out here in some numbers and are bringing boats.
“Whether that’s enough boats, we don’t know. Certainly, there’s going to be, I think, growing anger about what’s happened and also a sense of desperation because a lot of this water, it looks very tranquil, but even yesterday we were wading through sewage, basically, and this is right in the town centre.
“They’re worried about the future implications of disease.
“We were speaking to a lot of the volunteers who have come here to help and they are bringing piles of medicine, antibiotics and cleaning materials.
“Dam construction experts have been trying to work out how much more of the foundations are likely to disintegrate around the dam and they’re predicting it will because of the sheer force of the water it’s been holding back – and that will unleash even more water.”
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Rescue operations are continuing in an attempt to save people from their homes
More water will be unleashed due to ‘sheer force’
The governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Wednesday that 1,582 houses had been flooded on the right bank of the river and some 1,457 people had been evacuated overnight.
The TASS agency, citing emergency services, said about 2,700 houses were flooded after the dam’s destruction.
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Russia accused of ‘attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction’ with dam attack
‘If the water rises, we will lose our house’
Residents have been seen wading through flooded streets carrying children on their shoulders, dogs in their arms and belongings in plastic bags while rescuers used rubber boats to continue searching for survivors.
One civilian, Oksana, 53, in Kherson, said: “Everything is submerged in water, all the furniture, the fridge, food, all flowers, everything is floating. I do not know what to do.”
Oleksandr Reva, who has been moving his family’s belongings into the abandoned home of a neighbour on higher ground, said: “If the water rises for another metre, we will lose our house.”
Many people are feared dead and dozens have been injured in a stampede at a Hindu festival in northern India.
Images from the scene in the city of Prayagraj, in Uttar Pradesh state, show bodies being stretchered away and rescuers helping those who were hurt.
Millions of people were attempting to take a holy bath in the river at the massive Maha Kumbh festival when there was an initial stampede at 1am local time (1930 UK time).
Ambulance crews have been taking the injured to hospital. Pic: APTN
Authorities said people trying to escape it were then caught in a second – and more serious – stampede at an exit.
Devotees had congregated to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.
A Rapid Action Force unit, a special team deployed during crisis situations, has been sent to the scene. Pic: APTN
A Rapid Action Force unit, a special team deployed during crisis situations, has been sent to the scene.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to the chief minister for Uttar Pradesh state, Yogi Adityanath, calling for “immediate support measures”, according to the ANI news agency.
Authorities had expected a record 100 million people to visit Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh – “festival of the Sacred Pitcher” – on Wednesday for the holy dip.
It is regarded as a significant day for Hindus, due to a rare alignment of celestial bodies after 144 years.
Huge crowds gathered on Tuesday at the Hindu festival, the world’s largest religious gathering. Pic: Reuters
The Maha Kumbh festival, which is held every 12 years, started on 13 January and is the world’s largest religious gathering.
Organisers had forecast that more than 400 million people would attend the pilgrimage site over the next six weeks.
Hindu devotees arriving for a holy dip on Tuesday. Pic: AP
Authorities have built a sprawling tent city on the riverbanks, equipped with 3,000 kitchens and 150,000 toilets and 11 hospitals.
Stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds can gather in small areas.
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Iran says Israel and America would be “crazy” to attack its nuclear facilities, adding it would spell a “very bad disaster” for the region.
The warning came in the first interview to be given by Iran’s foreign minister since its arch nemesis Donald Trump’s inauguration.
In an exclusive interview with Sky News in the Iranian capital, Abbas Araghchi also mocked the US president for proposing a “clean out” of Palestinians from Gaza. Iran’s top diplomat suggested instead that Israelis be sent to Greenland.
Sky News’ international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn with Mr Araghchi
Mr Araghchi invited Sky News to Iran’s foreign ministry for the interview, taking the opportunity to address talk of Israel attacking Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme with US backing.
“We have made it clear,” he said, “that any attack to our nuclear facilities would be faced with an immediate and decisive response. But I don’t think they will do that crazy thing. This is really crazy. And this would turn the whole region into a very bad disaster.”
Donald Trump. Pic: Reuters
In his first term in office, Mr Trump reneged on America’s support for an internationally negotiated deal over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme, which saw uranium enrichment limited in return for sanctions being lifted.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is for civilian and peaceful purposes. However, since Mr Trump went back on the deal, Iran has returned to enriching uranium to levels that have no purpose other than building a nuclear weapon, say Western governments.
Mr Trump has hinted he would prefer a diplomatic solution, saying a new deal with Iran would be “nice”.
But Mr Araghchi said although he was prepared to listen to President Trump, it would take a lot more than that for Iran to be convinced it should begin negotiations with the US towards another deal, given what happened with the first.
“The situation is different and much more difficult than the previous time,” he said. “Lots of things should be done by the other side to buy our confidence… We haven’t heard anything but the ‘nice’ word, and this is obviously not enough.”
‘Take them to Greenland’
The foreign minister was also dismissive of Mr Trump’s latest comments about the Middle East. The re-elected president’s proposal that Gaza is cleaned out of Palestinians has prompted outrage across the region.
Mr Araghchi mocked the idea with one of his own: “My suggestion is something else. Instead of Palestinians, try to expel Israelis, take them to Greenland so they can kill two birds with one stone.”
Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on 1 October, 2024
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts Iranian rockets. Pics: Reuters
Iran’s allies ‘are rebuilding themselves’
In his short term in office, Mr Araghchi has seen allies and friends assassinated and toppled from power.
He conceded Iran’s allies have been weakened, saying: “Hamas and Hezbollah have been damaged. But at the same time, they are rebuilding themselves, because as I said, this is a school of thought, this is an idea, this is a cause, this is an ideal that will always be there.”
Iranians hope deal could be done with West
Iranians we spoke to on the streets of Tehran said they hoped a deal could be done with the West if it could lead to a lifting of sanctions and an improvement in Iran’s dire economic fortunes.
Some estimates place inflation at 50%, while youth unemployment is near 20% and the currency is at an all-time low.
Trust between Iran and America is also at rock bottom levels. Making progress towards any agreement and lifting sanctions will be enormously challenging.
Donald Trump thinks the Chinese startup DeepSeek, which claims it has a technical advantage over US rivals, should be “a wakeup call” for American AI firms.
DeepSeek says its artificial intelligence models are comparable with those from US giants, like OpenAI which is behind ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, but potentially a fraction of the cost.
That has triggered a fall in various US shares, especially chipmaker Nvidia which registered a record one-day loss for any company on Wall Street.
But the US president believes the success of the Chinese firm could be helpful to America’s AI aspirations.
“The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win,” Mr Trump said in Florida.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has promised to outperform rival firm DeepSeek. Pic: AP
He pointed to DeepSeek’s ability to use fewer computing resources. “I view that as a positive, as an asset… you won’t be spending as much, and you’ll get the same result, hopefully,” he added.
On Monday, the DeepSeek assistant had surpassed ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s app store.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has given his rival some acknowledgement in a post on X, reacting to DeepSeek’s R1 “reasoning” model – a core part of the AI technology which answers questions.
“DeepSeek’s r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price,” he wrote.
But Mr Altman was also defiant: “We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases.”
There have been concerns DeepSeek could undermine the potentially $500bn (£401bn) AI investment by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank in Stargate which Mr Trump announced last week at the White House.
That project essentially aims to build vastly more computing power to boost AI development.
But while addressing Republicans in Miami on Monday, Mr Trump remained upbeat. He claimed that Chinese leaders had told him the US had the most brilliant scientists in the world.
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He indicated that if Chinese industry could come up with cheaper AI technology, US companies would follow.
“We always have the ideas. We’re always first. So I would say that’s a positive that could be very much a positive development.
“So instead of spending billions and billions, you’ll spend less, and you’ll come up with, hopefully, the same solution,” Mr Trump said.
The intense attention on the Chinese firm has not all been good news though. It reported suffering “large-scale malicious attacks” on its services.
The company said it was hit by a cyber attack on Monday which disrupted users’ ability to register on the site.
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