On Wednesday, April 10, at 7 p.m., a dam broke on the unexploited sludge field No.3 at the Bortnychi aeration plant in Boryspil district nearby Kyiv, the State Emergency Service informs.
“The intensive melting of large masses of snow and high rise of ground water has caused intense flooding of the dam body, resulting in the loss of its wear resistant characteristics. This has caused a breach in the dam in the throughput well. Melt water began to flow into the receiving tank of the pumping station, but the pump failed due to extremely large liquid volume, so the water poured out on the neighborhood," the emergency authorities said in a statement.
At 05.45 on April 11, water leakage was stopped by building bridges and strengthening of embankments in the washout area. The emergency was liquidated.
Sludge field No.3 has an area of 106 hectares.
590 people and 36 units of special equipment were involved in emergency liquidation.
Waterflood occurred on 1.9 hectares of contiguous territory.
"Due to the risk of passage of heavy equipment on the dam, which is saturated with melt water, it was decided to manually pass sandbags to place of breach," the Kyiv City State Administration says.
Altogether, five thousand sandbags were used. At 2.45 the breakthrough was eliminated, emergency works continued until 5 a.m.
