KYIV — Russian forces have blown up the dam at the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power station potentially causing destruction around the town of Kherson, prompting mass evacuations and fears for large-scale devastation, the AFP news agency reported.

Ukraine has accused Moscow’s forces of committing an act of “ecocide.”

Residents downstream from the dam on the Dnipro River in Kherson were told to “do everything you can to save your life,” the head of Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported Tuesday morning, as video showed a deluge of water gushing from a huge breach in the dam.

The Soviet-era dam in the Russian-controlled part of southern Ukraine was blown on Tuesday, unleashing a significant amount of water now flowing free through the dam and the hydroelectric power plant.

Ukraine's military authorities said the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed by Russian forces, while Russian authorities blame Ukraine. For months, both sides have been accusing each other of plotting to blow up the dam, which supplies water for drinking, agriculture, and the cooling of the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

"The Russian army has carried out another terrorist attack. They have blown up the Kakhovka dam," Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Military Administration of Kherson province, said in a video address to the local population. The Ukrainian army's Southern Command, meanwhile, has written that it is establishing "the destruction, speed and volume" of the overflow caused by the explosion.

According to a statement Tuesday from the intelligence department of Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, Russian forces blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam “in panic.”

“The occupiers blew up the Kakhovka Reservoir dam in panic — this is an obvious terrorist attack and war crime that will become evidence in an international tribunal,” the statement on the Defense Intelligence's Telegram channel said.

“This terrorist act is a sign of the Putin regime's panic,” the statement continued.

The destruction of the dam created a “deadly danger” for Ukrainian citizens in the settlements on both banks of the Dnipro River. It also "affects the ecosystem of the entire Black Sea region" and increases the threat of a “nuclear catastrophe," Defense Intelligence said.

President Zelensky has blamed the destruction of the dam on Russian terrorists, writing on Twitter: "The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land. Not a single meter should be left to them, because they use every meter for terror."

He added: "All services are working. I have convened the National Security and Defense Council."

The National Police of Ukraine has started evacuating people in affected villages while also urging them to turn off their electrical appliances, as written on Telegram.

The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, reported that the country's president, Volodymir Zelensky, had convened an urgent National Security Council.

The Kakhovka Dam, which stretches across the frontline traversing Ukraine’s Dnieper River, is 30m tall and 3.2km long. It was built in 1956 as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and contains an enormous amount of water -- the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, US -- which is used to supply the Crimean peninsula and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

The destruction of the dam could add to Ukraine's ongoing energy problem, as well as disrupting the irrigation system in Crimea. — Agencies