AP: 'At least hundreds' of people killed in floods in temporarily occupied Kherson region after Kakhovka HPP explosion

Associated Press journalists have found that "at least hundreds" of people died in floods in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region after the Kakhovka HPP was blown up in June 2022.

The newspaper writes that the so-called "authorities" in the temporarily occupied territory claimed that 59 people drowned in the territory under their control after the dam was blown up on June 6.

However, an AP investigation has shown that the death toll is at least hundreds of people. In occupied Oleshky alone, where 16,000 people lived at the time of the flooding, the number is at least "in the hundreds".

Journalists suggest that the exact number of deaths in Oleshky and beyond may never be known, even if the Ukrainian forces retake the territory and are able to investigate on the ground.

This is because the Russians took control of the issuance of death certificates, immediately removing bodies not claimed by family, and preventing local health workers and volunteers from dealing with the dead, threatening them when they defied orders.

The AP spoke with, among others, three health workers who kept records of the dead in Oleshky, one volunteer who buried the bodies and said she had been threatened by Russian police later, and two Ukrainian informants passing intelligence from the area to the Ukrainian security service.