A month after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, the smell of rot lingers on the banks of the Dnipro river through Zaporizhzhia city.
The loss of the dam downstream led to a sudden four-metre drop in water levels, causing the mass death of fish, mussels and other aquatic life. The full scale of the ecological impacts is yet to be determined.
For many of Zaporizhzhia’s residents, the destruction of the dam was once unthinkable – they thought the severity of the crisis would have been too great. Now, they are anxiously waiting to see if another crisis once deemed unimaginable will become reality, as the Ukrainian government warns of an apparently impending Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
