UNITED NATIONS, June 6. /TASS/. Nearly 40 cities and villages have been inundated in Ukraine-controlled territories following the collapse of the Kakhovka Hydropower Plant (HPP), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.

"Ukrainian authorities reported that almost 40 towns and villages were fully or partially flooded in the parts of the Kherson region under Ukrainian control," it said.

"The scope and impact of the destruction of the dam and the depletion of the Kakhovka Reservoir, which is formed by the dam, is still being assessed, but are projected to have severe and longer-term consequences on the humanitarian situation in the area," it stressed.

Ukrainian forces shelled the Kakhovka HPP in the early morning hours on Tuesday, presumably using missiles fired from an Olkha multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). The gate valves of the plant’s dam collapsed as a result of the shelling, causing water to pour out uncontrollably.

As of now, the water level in Novaya Kakhovka has risen to above 12 meters. Fourteen settlements have been flooded and up to 80 are at risk of being inundated. People are being evacuated from neighboring settlements. However, according to local authorities, large-scale evacuations are not necessary. Farmlands along the Dnieper have been washed away. There is a risk of the drying out of the North Crimean Canal, which feeds water to Crimea.

Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has lambasted Ukraine’s strike on the Kakhovka HPP as a willful act of sabotage and placed responsibility for it entirely on the Kiev regime.