GENICHESK, June 12. /TASS/. Some 7,200 people have been evacuated from Kherson Region settlement, which were flooded after Ukraine’s strike on the Kakhovka Hydropower Plant (HPP), the region’s acting governor, Vladimir Saldo, said on Monday.

"As of now, as many as 7,200 people have been evacuated from the flooded territories in the Kherson Region. Some 1,600 of them have been allocated at temporary allocation ccenters," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

On the morning of June 6, the Ukrainian military launched a missile attack on the Kakhovka HPP, which resulted in the destruction of gate sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. According to emergency services, there are 35 communities in the flood zone, and residents of nearby villages are being evacuated. Eight people are reported to have died and more than 60 taken to the hospital.

The destruction of the hydro power plant has caused serious environmental damage with farmlands along the Dnieper River being washed away. Additionally, there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal may run low and become too shallow. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the strike on the Kakhovka dam as an act of deliberate sabotage by Ukrainian forces, adding that the Kiev regime should bear full responsibility for its consequences.