Eight people were killed in the Russian-controlled Kherson region and more than 5,800 were evacuated from their homes after the massive Kakhovskaya dam in southern Ukraine collapsed on Tuesday, a senior Russian-appointed official said on Friday.

Volodymyr Saldo, the Russian-appointed head of Ukraine’s Kherson region, which Russia claims it unilaterally annexed, accused Ukraine of continuing to bombard rescuers on the Russian-controlled left bank of the Dnieper.

In a Telegram post, Saldo said the water level in Novaya Kakhovka, a town adjacent to the dam downstream, had dropped 2.5 meters from its peak on Tuesday.

However, in Oleshki and Goliya Prystan, opposite the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson, at the mouth of the Dnipro River, the water level remained “at the maximum”.

Saldo noted that the flooding may not subside for another 10 days and that a total of 22,273 houses in 17 towns and villages in the Russian-controlled part of Kherson have been flooded.

On Tuesday, Saldo said people in Novaya Kakhovka were “calmly moving through the streets” after a nearby dam was blown up and flooded the town. At the same time, you can see the flooded streets behind him.

The dam of the Kakhovskaya HPP on the Dnieper was blown up in the morning of June 6, which provoked a large-scale humanitarian and environmental disaster in the south of Ukraine.

On Friday, the Kremlin accused Ukrainian forces of killing civilian victims of the floods during repeated bombings, including a pregnant woman.

Reuters said it could not independently verify the bombing claims, and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv, which has accused Moscow’s forces of shelling civilians in flooded territory it controls.

Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of undermining the dam.

Ukraine’s internal security service said on Friday it had intercepted a phone call proving Russian forces had blown up the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant and dam, Reuters reported.

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