Ukraine's Kakhovka dam burst floods 14,000 houses, 4,300 people evacuated

Around 14,000 houses have been flooded after Ukraine's Kakhovka dam burst, with around 4,300 people evacuated, Russian state-owned news agency TASS cited the country's security services as saying on Thursday.

The Kakhovka dam, which sits on the Dnipro River on the frontline between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled territory, burst on Tuesday. 

Around 600 sq km of Ukraine's southern Kherson region is underwater, 68% of which are located on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River, the regional governor also said on Thursday.

Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the average water level as of Thursday morning was 5.61 meters. 

Ukraine has accused Moscow of committing a war crime by blowing up the Soviet-era dam, which powered a hydroelectric station and was occupied by Russia. The Kremlin blames the collapse on Ukraine.

The Soviet-era dam, built in the 1950s, sits on the Dnipro River, which provides cooling water for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant some 150 kilometres (90 miles) away.

Moscow and Kyiv had previously offered conflicting assessments of the safety of the facility.