The Kherson region has been flooded following the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam (Picture: Reuters)

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine will have long-term effects similar to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, environmental experts have warned.

Almost 20,000 people had been rescued from flooding damage in Kherson, Kyiv confirmed last night, while another 40,000 face evacuation.

With rescue efforts still underway following the dam’s collapse on Tuesday morning, Ukrainians are currently trying to assess the longer-term damage to the region’s economy and environment. 

Officials and experts have warned that unique ecosystems might be lost, farmland turned into desert, and remaining water supplies contaminated.

40,000 people still need to be evacuated from the area (Picture: Getty)

‘I compare it with the Chernobyl disaster,’ said Maksym Soroka, an environmental safety expert at the Dovkola Network NGO.

‘Yes, the consequences are different, but the long-term effect on the population and the territory is the same,’ she told the Financial Times.

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister also drew comparisons to the nuclear disaster site, writing on Twitter that the dam collapse was ‘The worst environmental disaster in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster. 

‘Only this time Moscow deliberately used this weapon of mass destruction against the Ukrainians, he said. ‘Who else wants to negotiate with Putin?’

Prior to Russia’s invasion, Kherson was known as a popular nature spot, home to over 70 different species of animals and many endangered creatures.

But the region’s wildlife population, along with over 300 animals at the Kherson Zoo, has been wiped out after being flooded with 150 million tonnes of polluted floodwater.

For residents still in the city, evacuation efforts have been hampered by explosions from dislodged landmines and reports of Russian forces shelling Ukrainian emergency workers.

Locals have been struggling to navigate the waters (Picture: Getty)

The flood has wreaked havoc on the area’s wildlife population (Picture: Reuters)

There have been reports of Russians shelling evacuees (Picture: Reuters)

In Kherson, Ukraine’s deputy premier Oleksandr Kubrakov, said: ‘Infectious diseases and chemicals are getting into the water,’ and instructed local residents not to drink water drawn from wells and ground pumps, as is still common in rural Ukraine.

Ukraine’s farming minister said 94 per cent of agricultural irrigation systems in Kherson, 74 per cent in Zaporizhzhia and 30 per cent in Dnipropetrovsk would be left without a water source.

‘This was a huge irrigation system in which Ukrainian farmers had invested billions of dollars after the fall of the Soviet Union,’ said one executive at a large agricultural company. ‘It is all gone.’ 

Denys Marchuk, the deputy chair of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, a trade association, told Ukrainian television the dam’s destruction could cost the country up to 14 per cent of its grain exports. 

A woman holds a cat after being evacuated from a flooded area in Kherson (Picture: EPA)

Volunteers are attempting to save the area’s pets (PIcture: Getty)

‘We will not be able to grow anything in the Kherson region until the [dam] is restored,’ Marchuk said. Building a new dam could take several years even without an ongoing war.

Mayor Yevhen Ryschuk, who left the city after the Russians took control last year, reported three dead and said hundreds of residents need to be evacuated from their roofs. 

He said 90 per cent of Oleshky is flooded and facing a humanitarian crisis without electricity, potable water and food, as well as possible groundwater contamination.

Meanwhile, Russian-appointed Mayor Vladimir Leontyev said that the flooding killed thousands of animals in a nature preserve. Hundreds of animals trapped in Oleshky require urgent rescue, volunteers helping a local shelter have claimed.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said it was impossible to predict how many people would die in Russian-occupied areas due to the flooding, urging a ‘clear and rapid reaction from the world’ to support victims.

He told the world to respond to the ‘environmental bomb of mass destruction’ unleashed by Vladimir Putin.

‘This crime carries enormous threats and will have dire consequences for people’s lives and the environment,’ he said.

The long-term effects of the flooding will be felt for decades, experts claim (PIcture: Getty)

Zelensky has labelled the blast an ‘environmental bomb of mass destruction’ (Picture: EPA)

‘We can only help on the territory controlled by Ukraine. On the part occupied by Russia, the occupiers are not even trying to help. This again demonstrates the cynicism with which Russia treats people whose land it has captured.’

Russia has continued to deny responsibility for the collapse. However, Western observers are convinced the Kremlin sabotaged the hydro-electric dam with mines put in place early last year.

Ukraine is poised to begin its big push into Russian-occupied territories and its commanders were not entirely surprised by the attack on the dam.

Washington think tank the Institute for the Study of War said Russia has ‘a greater and clearer interest in flooding the lower Dnieper despite the damage to their own prepared defensive positions.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Kherson’s wildlife has been wiped out by the floods and 40,000 people still need to be evacuated.