At least nine people, including one child, have been killed after a severe rainstorm and flooding in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, according to the country’s emergency services.
A total of 362 others have been rescued so far as workers evacuated trapped people and pumped water out of buildings, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on Wednesday.
A little girl who had been missing was found in the early morning thanks to the relief efforts, the service added.
It posted pictures of people rescued from a flooded bus and of vehicles being pulled from the water.
Gennadiy Trukhanov, the mayor of Odesa, who said the situation was difficult but “under control”, wrote that almost two months of rain had fallen in the city in just seven hours.
“No storm sewer system can withstand such a load,” the mayor said on Telegram, noting that rescue efforts were continuing “without a break”.
More bad weather is forecast for Thursday, potentially adding to the challenges faced by Ukrainian first responders, three-and-a-half years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
The weather-related deaths came as the local military administration in the southern city of Kherson said a man had died on Wednesday morning as a result of a Russian attack there.
Meanwhile, an overnight Russian attack on the northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv injured six people, including a policeman, and started several fires, according to the national police.
Five of the six people were taken to hospital for treatment, said Oleh Syniehubov, the governor of Kharkiv region.
Videos and photos from the scene showed firefighters attempting to extinguish flames that appeared to be ripping through market stalls.
Over in Russia, the regional governor, Mikhail Yevrayev, reported that a fire had broken out at an oil refinery in the Yaroslavl region.
Despite Ukraine’s continued targeting of oil facilities inside Russia, Yevrayev claimed that the blaze had nothing to do with its ongoing war with Ukraine.
“Residents were concerned it might have been the result of an enemy drone attack,” he said. But what happened has nothing to do with that …The fire is of a technological nature.”
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that the situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is “critical” as the facility has been without power for seven days.
“It has been seven days now. There has never been anything like this before,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Tuesday.
The Russian-installed management at the nuclear plant said on Wednesday that backup electricity supply at the plant is sufficient, but that resumption of supply via the Dneprovskaya line is impossible due to Ukrainian shelling, Russian state news agency RIA reported.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirmed late on Tuesday that he was “in constant contact with the two sides with the aim to enable the plant’s swift reconnection to the electricity grid”.
“While the plant is currently coping thanks to its emergency diesel generators — the last line of defence — and there is no immediate danger as long as they keep working, it is clearly not a sustainable situation in terms of nuclear safety,” he said.
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