Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been struggling to get drinking water after major flooding in southern Ukraine following the destruction earlier this week of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, as rescuers continued efforts to bring as many people as possible to safety.
"The evacuation is ongoing," Zelenskiy said on his Telegram channel on June 9. "Wherever we can get people out of the flood zone, we do so."
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"In more than 40 settlements, life is broken. For hundreds of thousands of people in many towns and villages, access to drinking water has been greatly hampered," Zelenskiy said, reiterating that Ukraine holds Russia responsible for the destruction of the dam.
"We are establishing more details about the damage Russia has caused by this disaster. Russia must be held accountable for this deliberate crime against people, nature, and life itself," Zelenskiy said.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on June 9 that at least five people died and 13 are missing in the flooding that has extended to an area of some 600 square kilometers.
Klymenko said that 34 settlements were flooded on the right bank of the Dnieper that is under Ukrainian control and 14 more were inundated on the left bank, which is under Russian occupation. As of June 9, 2,400 people had been rescued in Kherson, Klymenko said.
In the neighboring Mykolayiv region, 23 settlements were flooded and over 800 people were evacuated, he said.
Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-installed head of Kherson region, said eight people died and 5,800 were rescued on the Russian-occupied part of the region.
"A total of 22,273 houses in 17 settlements were flooded in the region, Saldo wrote on Telegram, adding that the water may not subside for about 10 days.
IN PHOTOS: Rescuers are struggling to reach Kherson's most vulnerable people who are trapped by flooding following the breach of a dam in Russian-occupied territory.
Volunteers Struggle To Rescue Elderly Trapped By Floodwaters In Kherson
Earlier the Ukrainian governor of Kherson, Oleksandr Prokudin, said in a video message on June 9 that water levels are beginning to drop in the areas of the region that saw major flooding following the destruction of the dam.
"We can already see that the water has receded by 20 centimeters overnight," Prokudin said.
"In the morning, the water level in the region is 5.38 meters; in Kherson city, 5.35 meters," Prokudin said, adding that on the morning of June 9, a total of 3,624 houses in 32 settlements across the Kherson region were flooded.
Prokudin added that 2,352 people had already been evacuated from the flooded areas, although the rescue teams' efforts to bring people to safety were hampered by constant Russian shelling from across the Dnieper.
On June 8, Russian forces shelled the Kherson area shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the southern region.
An RFE/RL correspondent on the ground reported explosions Kherson’s Korabel district as rescuers in rubber dinghies continued to evacuate people who had yet to leave the disaster area.
Prokudin said Russians shelled Kherson's coastal areas and the center of the city of Kherson.
The Red Cross warned that the flooding would have disastrous effect on efforts to locate land mines that had been planted in the region.
Dislodged mines transported by the water could pose serious dangers both to the local people and the rescuers, the Red Cross warned.
WATCH: RFE/RL visited a village in the Kherson region of Ukraine, which was flooded after a large dam broke on the Dnieper River.
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Ukrainian Village Underwater After Dam Breach
On the battlefield, Ukrainian defenders repelled more Russian assaults around the Bakhmut area in the eastern region of Donetsk over the past 24 hours, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said in its morning report on June 9.
Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, and Maryinka saw 43 combat clashes, the military said, adding that Russian artillery indiscriminately pounded Maryinka.
Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on June 8 that he was grateful to the Ukrainian fighters who achieved "results" on the battlefield after the military said the previous day that Ukrainian forces advanced more than one kilometer in Bakhmut after months of putting up a stark defensive.
SEE ALSO: Occupation, Liberation, And Now The Flood: Dam Breach Upends Life In Kherson, Ukraine. Again."Well done in Bakhmut. Step by step," he said. Zelenskiy referred to other areas where fighting is going on but provided no details.
His statement came amid expectations of the start of a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake regions occupied by Russia since the invasion that started in February last year.
Early on June 9, the military said that in the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson areas Russian troops were on the defensive, amid reports on social media of a limited Ukrainian counterattack in the Orikhiv area of Zaporizhzhya.
The Ukrainian military has not commented on the reports.