Floods hit Ukraine after Kakhovka dam blown up on Dnipro river

Ukrainian authorities have ordered hundreds of thousands of residents downriver to evacuate

Water runs through a breakthrough in the Kakhovka dam (Ukrainian Presidential Office/AP)

Ukraine has accused Russian forces of blowing up a major dam and hydroelectric power station in a part of southern Ukraine that Russia controls, sending water gushing from the facility and risking massive flooding.

Officials have described the breach as an “ecological disaster”.