The United Nations said at least 16,000 people have already lost their homes, and efforts were underway to provide clean water, money, and legal and emotional support to those affected. Officials said about 22,000 people live in areas at risk of flooding in Russian-controlled areas on the eastern side of the river, while 16,000 live in the most critical zone in Ukrainian-held territory on the western side - areas like those evacuated on Tuesday. Some residents clung to each other to keep from falling into the rising tide. One man chucked his German shepherd from the roof of the stalled truck onto another. Space was limited on the trucks, and an effort to tow two rafts behind one went awry when the ropes snapped. Some found themselves floating under the rafters of their homes as the waters rose. But as the water level climbed in the streets, rising nearly to the tops of bus stops or the second floor of buildings, national guard teams and emergency crews fanned out to retrieve people who got stranded. In the early morning, before the floodwaters arrived, many residents tried to stick it out. It could take days to know the real toll and damage. The island neighborhood was one residential area in the direct slipstream of Tuesday's catastrophe, which experts said was expected to play out over days as pent-up waters from the Kakhovka reservoir wash their way unhindered toward the Black Sea. Officials on both sides said the massive dam breach had caused no civilian casualties the hurried escape aimed to keep it that way. “The Russians have hit the dam, and didn’t think of consequences,” said Oleksandr Sokeryn, who fled his house with his family after it was completely flooded. Russian authorities blamed recent Ukrainian military strikes. Ukrainian authorities accused Russian forces of purposely destroying the dam. The scrambled evacuation by boat and military truck from an island neighborhood off the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson downstream on Tuesday testified to the latest human chaos caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Nobody knew just how high the waters rushing through a gaping hole in the Kakhovka dam would rise, or whether people or pets would escape alive.
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