The view from villagers’ gardens on the northern shore of Kakhovka Reservoir has changed significantly in the four days since an explosion destroyed the nearby dam and the waters receded.

Mud flats stretch for hundreds of yards, and a long sandbar has emerged from the water reaching out across the bay. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, only four miles across the water on the southern shore, where it is under Russian military control, appears closer. The water has already dropped below the critical level to resupply water to the plant, Ukrainian officials said.

In communities downriver, the water unleashed by the burst dam flooded homes and swept away property and livestock within hours of the explosion. For those living upstream, the disaster has unfolded in slow motion, the reservoir dropping three to four feet a day.

“Everything will die,” said Tetyana, 64, as she walked through her fruit and vegetable garden, with young tomato plants on her left and red currant and black currant bushes on her right.

The taps had run dry in the morning in her village, Prydniprovske, said Tetyana, who like other local residents withheld their surnames for security reasons. She had just managed to do a load of washing in time. And the pipe that she used to water the vegetables had also dried up.

Built 75 years ago, the Kakhovka Reservoir, the largest body of fresh water in Ukraine, is the life and livelihood of communities across a huge region. Its water feeds everything from small homes to large industries, with gardens, vineyards, shipping businesses and steel plants all reliant on the reservoir.

Now, all are under threat. The towns and villages that grew up around the reservoir face hardship, even extinction, endangering a critical pillar of Ukraine’s economy.

Carlotta Gall is a senior correspondent currently covering the war in Ukraine. She previously was Istanbul bureau chief, covered the aftershocks of the Arab Spring from Tunisia, and reported from the Balkans during the war in Kosovo and Serbia, and from Afghanistan and Pakistan after 2001. She was on a team that won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan. @carlottagall • Facebook

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