THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
The Inhulets River, which flows into the Dnieper River from the right bank, has started to flow in the opposite direction. The water that flooded the Kherson Region after the Russians had blown up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, retreating, filled the Inhulets basin, and the river, seemingly contrary to common sense, started to flow in the opposite direction, at the same time flooding its banks.
This was said by TV journalist Mykhailo Sharkov, who recently visited the village of Pavlo-Mariyanivka on the bank of Inhulets near the settlement of Snihurivka in the Mykolayiv Region, in a comment for the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU).
“People woke up from a noise that resembled the sound of a waterfall,” the journalist said. “This was the moment when the Inhulets began to spread. And the more it falls in the Dnieper, the more it rises in Inhulets….”
The flooded villages of Pavlo-Mariyanivka and Yevhenivka are not far from Kherson, but many roads are flooded, and to get there, journalists had to detour through Mykolayiv and Snihurivka, then drive in the direction of Kryvyi Rih, and finally through mined fields to reach Pavlo-Mariyanivka.
“As a result, few people get there, and there is real trouble in the village,” says Mykhailo Sharkov. “This is a rich agricultural region, and people lived there quite well before the war. But the occupiers came – and part of the village was occupied; there were fierce battles for many months. After liberation, people took out loans for reconstruction – and here is a new challenge… Locals say: “First, they killed us during the occupation, then they tried to burn us, and now they are trying to flood us.” Houses with two or three floors are underwater. Poor people….”
Children remained in the village. People help each other; those who live upper from Inhulets receive those whose property had drowned. Drinking water, which was taken from wells, became of poor quality. There is almost no communication because there is no electricity. In contrast to Kherson, Pavlo-Mariyanivka is not visited by volunteers either. The only connection for the flooded villages with civilization lies through mined fields…
NUJU Information Service
Photo and Video: Mykhailo Sharkov
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