Good morning and welcome to the Daily Article Podcast for Wednesday, June the 7th,

2023. Today's article is written by Dr. Ryan Denison and narrated by Chris Elkins.

Early Tuesday morning, a significant portion of the Novakakovka Dam and hydroelectric power station along the Nipper River in Ukraine was destroyed.

The reservoir, it previously restrained, held roughly 18 million cubic meters of water,

most of which has now spilled over the remaining walls and flooded much of the area between what is left of the dam and the city

of Kersan less than 50 miles away. As many as 100 towns and villages downstream from the dam

have either already flooded or in danger of that fate. Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky,

called it the largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres echoed those thoughts,

describing the dam's breach as a monumental humanitarian, economic, and ecological catastrophe,

adding that it represented another devastating consequence of the

Russian invasion of Ukraine. But while we cannot know the full extent of that devastation

until the water recedes over the next five to seven days, the damage wrought by the flood could

be felt for years to come. One of the greatest fears initially was that the Zappadoitia nuclear plant upriver from the dam

could experience a meltdown since it relied heavily upon the now-depleted reservoir to cool its reactors.

It would appear that, at least for a few months, that they have sufficient supplies of water in reserve to operate safely,

but officials have noted that bringing in water from the outside could be necessary eventually.

The more pressing fear is that the lands along the river will be unusable for quite some time.

The reservoir was responsible for irrigating much of Ukraine's most fertile farmland and any

land that survived the flood could be difficult to rely upon without the reservoir's reserves.

Considering that, prior to the war, Ukraine provided roughly 16% of the world's corn exports and

supplied 40% of the grain used by the World Food Program to help some of the world's corn exports and supplied 40% of the grain used by the world food program to help some of the most

...