GENICHESK, June 15. /TASS/. The death toll in the flooding caused by a major dam breach at the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant (HPP) last week has risen to 18, the Kherson Region’s acting governor Vladimir Saldo reported on Thursday.

"Unfortunately, the death toll in the flooding has climbed to 18," Saldo wrote on his Telegram channel.

Over 7,500 people have been evacuated from flooded areas since when rescue efforts began, including 461 children and 146 people with limited mobility, Saldo added. According to him, 1,764 affected people have been accommodated at temporary facilities, and another 93 people have been hospitalized.

So far, 627 evacuees have been vaccinated against dangerous infections, he reported.

Meanwhile, flood waters continued to recede, the acting governor said.

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. In Novaya Kakhovka, the flood waters rose as high as 35 meters at the peak of the flooding. Overall, as many as 35 localities have been affected.

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. 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.