A multi-hundred foot chunk of the Nova Kakhovka dam is gone, the Kakhovka Reservoir is quickly emptying out into the Dnipro.
This is probably the most catastrophic amount of damage that could have been done to the dam.
The Kakhovka Reservoir holds roughly 18.2 km3 of water, a significant amount of which is now heading down the Dnipro towards the Black Sea.
The turbine hall suffered major damage, and a number of the control gates are just gone
To give people an idea of the size of the Kakhovka Reservoir, the next dam upstream is in Zaporizhzhia.
Pulling from @Cornubot's article from last year-
"A 4 – 5 m wave will hit the Antonovsky bridge east of Kherson city after 19 hours... Most of Kherson City will not flood, but the harbour and the docklands will be flooded."
cornucopia.se/2022/10/worst-…
Pulling the flooding model from the article here-
Most of the land on the south bank of the river will be flooded. Between that and the upper reservoir turning into a mud flat, it basically ends any threat of a Ukrainian amphibious assault across the Dnipro.
The last @sentinel_hub pass was a little less than 24 hours ago. The water level appears to be fairly high in the reservoir, with several gates open on the dam itself.
Of note, that is the entrance to the Crimean Canal, which is most likely now flowing away from Crimea into the Dnipro.
Ukrainian Operational Command South appears to have officially blamed Russian forces.
Also of note, Russian state media has been incredibly quiet on the dam breach, only really denying that it happened in the first place.
And the denial is certainly something, with the Russian occupation mayor of Nova Kakhovka claiming that everything is quiet and calm.
t.me/rian_ru/204791
Additional footage from behind the dam breach. It's large, with water levels already appearing to drop in the reservoir.
Water levels starting to rise south of the dam, seen here in Ponyativka, Kherson Oblast
Russian state media now saying that the dam "collapsed due to damage". t.me/tass_agency/19…
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