Ukraine: landmines moved by floods pose new menace

STORY: The flooding from the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine is continuing to spread, now hitting the city of Mykolaiv.

And the Red Cross is warning that one particular side effect of this disaster could pose an incredible danger to civilians even decades from now: unexploded land mines and other munitions that have been swept away by the flood... and now could literally be anywhere.

They could still be in the minefields... or they could be in the middle of roads, someone's backyard, or in their own home. As one Red Cross official put it, the only thing we do know is that the mines are somewhere downstream.

Andro Mathewson is with the Halo Trust, an NGO that clears landmines, and has been working in the Mykolaiv region.

"The immediate threat to us and our staff and civilians is the fact that mines might move and that will, you know, that will lead to the need for us to resurvey these areas, re-mark them as minefields and obviously reorganize ourselves in terms of how to approach the clearance problems. Beyond that, the mines might not only move, but they might also fluctuate in terms of the way they're laid, which poses another risk."

"We've seen 5,000 mines in that region in the last month alone. Yeah, it's, it's basically impossible to give an estimate. I mean, the contamination is so, so massive. The conflict is ongoing. You know, the size of Ukraine itself, you know, the frontline is 1,200 miles. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's just really impossible to say. That could be, could be 1%. Could be .0001."

Meanwhile, evacuations from the flood are ongoing but the fighting around it hasn't stopped.

Ukrainian authorities said Thursday that a civilian was killed and several others wounded during by what they called "targeted strikes" by Russian shelling in one of the cities hit by the flood, Kherson.

Russia also accuses Ukraine of shelling rescue workers in parts of the region that it occupies.