Yuri Grybennikov struggles to carry two large bottles of drinking water filled from a tank installed outside his home in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.
The 72-year-old’s ground-floor flat was flooded after the destruction of a major dam on the Dnipro River earlier this month.
The pensioner and his wife then had to move to a hallway of the dilapidated residential building.
“There is no gas, no electricity, but at least we have water,” said the elderly man, in flip-flops and shorts.
The Kakhovka dam disaster sparked a humanitarian crisis after thousands of people lost access to drinking water across the region of Kherson.
Authorities and volunteers have set up tanks around the city of Kherson to provide residents with drinking water.
Three weeks on, although tap water is starting to reappear, officials warn against drinking it.
“Today, the water is not drinkable, it is chlorinated,” Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, spokesman for the regional administration, told AFP.
“We can use it to wash ourselves, for the needs of the house, but we cannot cook with it, nor drink it”, he added.
Public water supplies should be disinfected first, said Tolokonnikov.
“Then we will take samples and, if all goes well, we will start providing potable water.”
Lida, 70, came to a water tank to fill up her plastic bottles.
She said the tap water was clean but she did not drink it.
“I am afraid,” said the elderly woman.
Elizabeth, a volunteer from the UK, has helped provide thousands of locals with drinking water.
“We have been installing barrels around the city and the villages around Kherson,” said the young woman.
They wanted to make sure Ukrainians had easy access to clean water and that they did not have to congregate around one large tank, she said.
The June 6 breach of the Russia-controlled Kakhovka dam flooded huge swathes of the Kherson region. The disaster killed dozens of people and forced thousands of others to flee.
Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up the dam, which was under Moscow’s control, while the Kremlin insists that it was Kyiv that shelled the Soviet-era structure.
