The water level in the reservoir of the Kakhovka hydro power plant has already dropped below the dead point, the head of Ukrhydroenergo, Ihor Syrota, has told the telethon.
According to him, the erosion of the plant will continue. Currently, half of the plant is underwater, and the other half is 70% in water.
"The land area between the lock and the station will also be washed away... The water level in the reservoir at this hour is already 12.5 metres, which is below the dead point of 12.7 metres, when it is still possible to deliver water to settlements and for Zaporizhzhya NPP for cooling," said Syrota.
Currently, the rate of water discharge from the reservoir is about one metre per day. At this rate, the water will continue to be released for about 708 days, and the reservoir will lose about 8.5 metres of water from the level there was before the explosion.
The head of Ukrhydroenergo also said that the construction of a new hydroelectric power plant and the dismantling of the destroyed one would take about five years, given a very tight schedule. A project for the repair of the hydro power plant and a project for the cofferdam are currently being developed. This will take several months if works are carried out 24 hours a day.
According to earlier reports, water levels are rising in the Inhulets River in Kherson Region. Some settlements on the border between Kherson and Mykolayiv regions are under the threat of flooding. Today, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the main pumping station of the Inhulets River Canal Authority, which is flooded.
Meanwhile, at a meeting on 8 June, the parliamentary budget committee approved the allocation of UAH 1.5 billion from the Fund for the Elimination of the Consequences of Armed Aggression to implement a pilot project for the construction of main water supply systems over two years.