MOSCOW, June 13. /TASS/. As many as 1,761 homes and 17 vital social infrastructure facilities in the Kherson Region are no longer flooded after a major dam breach at the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant (HPP) last week, emergency response services told TASS on Tuesday.

"According to the latest reports, 1,761 houses, a cemetery, and 17 social infrastructure facilities have been freed from the water," an emergency services official said. According to him, water levels should fully return back to normal by June 16.

Overall, over 1,080 homes in the Novaya Kakhovka Municipal District were freed from the flood waters, while the figures in the Alyoshki and Golaya Pristan districts were 2,350 and 330, respectively. Rescue efforts are currently being made in areas where the water levels subsided, with excessive water being pumped out from houses and debris removal efforts underway. Cell phone engineers are working to restore mobile networks across the region.

In the early morning hours of June 6, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike on the Kakhovka HPP. The shelling destroyed the hydraulic sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. The collapse of the hydro plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage, with farmland along the Dnieper River being washed away and a heightened risk that water levels in the North Crimean Canal will become unsustainably low.

Kherson Region Acting Governor Vladimir Saldo said rescue teams had evacuated 7,200 people from the localities in the region affected by major flooding. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the attack on the Kakhovka HPP as a deliberate act of sabotage by Ukraine. He added that the Kiev regime should bear full responsibility for the consequences.