MOSCOW, June 8. /TASS/. Over 14,000 houses across 15 Kherson Region communities were flooded after the dam of the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant (HPP) was breached due to shelling by Ukrainian forces, the regional emergency services told TASS on Thursday.

"Presently, over 14,000 houses in 15 settlements in the Kherson Region are flooded. The territory of the Lower Dnieper National Nature Park, five cemeteries, a cattle burial site, a hospital and a kindergarten are also under water," the emergency services said.

The evacuation of people continues, they said.

"In total, 4,280 people, including over 170 children and 42 persons with reduced mobility, have been evacuated," a spokesman for the regional emergency services said.

Over 500 evacuated local residents, including more than 60 children and eight people with reduced mobility, have been housed in three temporary accommodation centers set up in Genicheskaya Gorka, Zhelezny Port and Skadovsk. The other evacuees found shelter at the homes of relatives and acquaintances. Mobile communications are out of order, while electricity and water supply have been cut off, he said.

In the early morning hours of June 6, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike against the Kakhovka HPP, destroying the plant’s hydraulic sluice valves, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. The water levels reached 12 meters in the nearby city of Novaya Kakhovka and currently the flood water is subsiding. According to the regional emergency services, 35 settlements are in the flood zone. Residents of nearby communities are being evacuated.

The destruction of the Kakhovka HPP has caused serious environmental damage, as farmland has been washed away and the risk of shallowing of the North Crimean Canal has emerged. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed the strike against the Kakhovka HPP as a deliberate act of sabotage by Ukraine. He added that the Kiev regime must be held fully accountable for all of the ensuing consequences.