I can't keep it to myself anymore. It is a mixture of pain, fear, anger and thirst for revenge. A mixture of memories and reality that was triggered by a terrible terrorist attack committed by Russian war criminals. People who cannot be called people. When I watch these videos, the endless muddy mass of water that brings destruction and death, I can barely hold back the tears and my heart bleeds.
It's very personal for me. My parents once built a house in a village on the bank of a river that originates in the mountains and then flows into the Dniester. This house has been flooded twice in my lifetime.
It happened for the first time in the summer of 2008. It rained non-stop for a whole month. Water in mountain rivers rises very quickly. Although ... I think that with the proper operation of the engineering facilities and qualified actions of the personnel, the disaster could have been avoided. But it turned out differently. In the end, the water broke the dam 12 km from our village and an uncontrolled wave rushed to flood the villages.
The Prut River flows at the edge of the village, it is quite far from our house. And at the end of the garden flows a small stream. In those days, there was one continuous sea from this stream to the riverbed of the Prut.
None of us live permanently in that house, so my mother constantly called the neighbors in the village, and then the neighbor asked not to call, because the electricity disappeared, and the bridges around were flooded or destroyed.
My poor mother... She was in despair because of the uncertainty. The last time she cried this much was a few years ago when my father died. As soon as the opportunity arose, she and my brother and his wife went to save the house and property. Unlike our neighbors, we had no one to move valuables to the second floor. I stayed in the city to take care of my elderly grandmother. I had such a strange feeling then... similar to what happened in March 2022 in Kyiv. The busiest streets were empty. There were very few people and cars. Only ambulance sirens are heard. The air was filled with constant anxiety, sad news came and came. Here the bridge was closed, another collapsed, and another. The list of flooded villages increased every hour. We prayed that the rain would stop at least in the mountains.
And in 2020, I myself witnessed these events. The water level was lower, but this time I also went there to help. What I saw in those 2 days, which the neighbors told me, really impressed me. I will tell you that it is very scary. So much grief. Dead animals, livestock, washed away cemeteries and cesspools, dirty wells, garbage, silt and its smell everywhere. Land that is very difficult to cultivate after that and difficult to grow anything.
During the first flood, the water in the house reached the windows, and during the second, it was approximately 10-15 cm above the floor. But we could not survive the second flood. I have never worked so hard in my life as I did then. And my husband, daughter, brother. We tried to do the hardest work, but mom didn't listen, she carried heavy buckets of silt herself and she ruptured a tendon in her shoulder. Then there was a complex surgery, unfinished rehabilitation due to covid, then she underwent heart surgery. The war began before she had fully recovered.
As for the house, there is no one to take care of it anymore, because someone from the car is needed for this. My mother is completely unable to do any work, my brother lost his job because of the war and had to sell the machine. My husband is in the service, and we live too far away. So, if it is not sold in the near future, things will look very sad.
Mom has been asking me to post an ad for a long time. She sent the plan, description, photos. But it hurts me so much. I couldn't look at those photos for two weeks. It was as if I had to bury a person who was still alive, a close person. I really love that house, the river and the forest nearby. So much work, so much love and care. We have excellent relations with our neighbors. My mom was born there... I finally got around to posting a couple of ads yesterday. That's it.
Thus, water, without which humans cannot live, turns into a powerful force that both gives and takes away... But the worst evil is done by a person.
Social networks are overflowing with pleas for help. Save people, save pets. I don't know whom to donate first. Electricity savings, water shortage have returned. Tonight water approaches Mykolaiv. And upstream, the level has dropped so much that residents of Zaporizhzhia and Energodar (adjacent to the nuclear power plant) are advised to leave the city. A friend says that in Zaporizhzhia the smell near the Dnipro is terrible. I know this is just the beginning. The worst is for people in the territories occupied by Russia. They are not saved and they are not allowed to be saved by others. Minefields were washed away by water. Where did those mines go?
I am no longer surprised by Russia's objections. We hear it all the time. The invasion of Donbas and Crimea is "not us, we are not there." The Boeing 777 was shot down - "it's not us." Winter 2022 - "we are not going to attack." Bucha - "it's not us." Dam in Kakhovka - "it's not us." A country of liars and criminals.
But I am still surprised by the International Red Cross, CNN, the UN, and yesterday's proposals of Turkey to investigate this disaster. Who is this offer for? For what audience? Yeah, let's investigate the obvious, while people, animals and unique ecosystems are dying.
The Russian military hacked explosives into the dam as early as the spring of 2022. And recently, literally on May 30, 2023, the Government of the RF adopted a Decree "On the peculiarities of the application in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, the Lugansk People's Republic, the Zaporizhzhia region and the Kherson region of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation in the areas of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and ensuring the safety of hydraulic structures". It is an interesting reading, but the last clause says a lot:
Until January 1, 2028, a technical investigation of accidents at hazardous production facilities and accidents of hydraulic structures that occurred as a result of hostilities, sabotage and terrorist acts is not carried out.
You don't have to be able to read between the lines to understand the obvious meaning given what happened and when it happened. What's next? Russian missiles are constantly trying to hit the dam of the Kyiv Reservoir. In addition to nuclear fuel, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has many munitions that can explode. So what's next?
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." Murphy's law. But not funny anymore.
I was going to make a post about Vorokhta. I made a draft and uploaded photos. About a beautiful ancient bridge, the beauty of spring flowers and a mountain river, about ... Who cares. I can't hold my tears and my pain. But I left the photos here because... who knows what might happen tomorrow.
Thank you so much 🖤
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