In addition to the dangers left by the disaster on the supply of energy, food and water in the affected areas, in addition to the spread of mines, especially floating ones, and diseases due to the considerable damage in the flooded areas, including including many areas populations.
Biodiversity is in danger
According to experts, one of the most serious aspects of the disaster is the damage to biodiversity, threatening more devastating effects, in particular for the river environment and its fish wealth in the Dnipro, including the death of large numbers of fish as a result of the dam collapse, amid warnings from Ukrainian health authorities against fishing and eating fish by residents of flooded areas such as Mykolaiv, Kherson and Zaporizhia, for fear of poisoning acute food.
Experts have warned that various aquatic organisms are at risk, including molluscs, shells and plants, and that the negative repercussions of the disaster will affect the biodiversity of the region as a whole.
A hydro expert explains
Geology and water expert Dr Ramadan Hamza said in an interview with Sky News Arabia:
Following the dam’s collapse, floodwaters swept fish away from the dam basin, meaning what happened in the aftermath of the disaster amounts to the “environmental annihilation” described. When a dam collapse occurs and water flows from the reservoirs of the dam, an outflow of solids and organic matter carried in the water can occur. If there is heavy coral growth in the affected area, the broken coral may turn over and float above the surface with the water currents. Because the presence of large amounts of coral floating on the surface can lead to the formation of a dense layer of organic matter on the surface, and when this substance begins to decompose, it consumes oxygen dissolved in the water, and this overconsumption of oxygen can lead to a sharp decrease in the percentage of oxygen available in the water, which leads to the death of fish and many organisms in the dam reservoir. This is because the low percentage of oxygen in the water negatively affects living organisms in the water, including fish. If the oxygen percentage drops to very low levels, the fish may have difficulty breathing and may suffer from suffocation and death. The most likely reason for the death of all these fish in large numbers is the severe lack of oxygen and their suffocation, which requires conducting field inspections and taking water samples to accurately determine the causes of the death of these fish. The warning against eating fish is because the aquatic environment they currently live in is polluted and threatens to spread disease and epidemics, and toxic chemicals may have leaked into the water at following floods and chaos, and therefore eating them can pose health risks that can lead to death. The repercussions of a dam failure and its impact on the aquatic environment is a serious problem, so it is necessary to take measures to reduce this negative impact, in particular by developing plans to deal with a possible dam failure and by supporting aquatic life. Unfortunately, the consequences of the tragedy will become clearer about a week after the date of the dam collapse, when the water clears, and what remains and what happens next will become apparent.
Kakhovka Dam
The dam is located on the Dnipro River, next to the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, and contains 18 million cubic meters of water. Its height is 30 meters and its length is 3.2 kilometers. It was completed in 1956. The dam behind it formed a lake almost similar in size to the Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah, and it also supplies water to the Crimean peninsula. , which Russia annexed in 2014.
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