KIEV, April 11 (Itar-Tass) - The breaking of the dam on an irrigated field of the Bortnicheskaya station of the Kiev water channel authority was eliminated overnight to Thursday. An intensive meltdown of snow and a steep rise in the ground waters resulted in the broken dam, which encircled the irrigated field of 106 hectares on Wednesday evening, the Ukrainian State Service of Emergency Situations reported in an operational report. The breach in the dam reached one metre. The water from the melted snow rushed in the water tank of the pumping station that could not pump so much water and the water tank overfilled. The water flooded about 1.9 hectares, but there was no threat of flooding neighbouring settlements, the closest one of which is situated three kilometres away from the broken dam.

Chairman of the Kiev state authorities Alexander Popov decided to involve emergency specialists and servicemen to localize the breaking of the dam after the inspection of the broken dam, the press service of the Kiev state authorities reported on Thursday. In general, 950 people, including 310 emergency workers and 240 servicemen from the Defence Ministry were involved in the cleanup of the broken dam incident. As many as 36 units of special machinery were brought to the broken dam site, but it was decided to bring the begs with sand manually to the broken dam site over the hazard for the movement of the heavy machinery to the dam, which was overfilled with the thawed water. A barrier of 5,000 begs with sands was built by 05:45 local time (06:45 Moscow time) and the remaining part of the dam was reinforced.

Chairman of the Ukrainian State Service of Emergency Situations Mikhail Bolotskikh was supervising the restoration works.

On March 22-24, the heaviest snowfalls for the last century hit Ukraine. According to the estimates of the specialists, about 40 million cubic metres of snow fell down in Kiev and its suburbs. Over the threat of a strong flood the Ukrainian state emergencies service has prepared a total of 42,000 rescuers, over 5,000 units of wheeled machinery and over 1,000 units of floating vehicles for the cleanup of the aftermaths of possible emergency situations in advance.