Zelensky says “hundreds of thousands” left without drinking water after dam's collapse

Flooding is pictured in Kherson, Ukraine, on June 6. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam has left “hundreds of thousands of people without normal access to drinking water.”

In a statement posted on Telegram, Zelensky said that prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, either side of the banks of the Dnipro River were home to “at least 100,000 people" but since the war that number has fallen to "tens of thousands."

The collapse of the dam has now led to more evacuations from the Russian-occupied Kherson region.

In a statement on Telegram, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said more than 1,400 people were also evacuated across the Kherson region, while more than 1,800 houses on the west bank of the Dnipro River have flooded.

This comes after Russian-installed mayor of Kherson claimed that seven people are currently missing, while Ukrainian troops say they witnessed Russian soldiers being swept up in floodwaters.

Meanwhile, 300 zoo animals died Tuesday after the collapse of the dam, according to the Ukrainian defense ministry .

Both Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the breach of the dam. CNN has not been able to verify these claims.