By Janet Ekstract
ISTANBUL-The new Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is working on coordinating humanitarian aid for Ukraine, according to his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba while diplomatic sources confirmed it. Kuleba who commented about the situation in Ukraine on Twitter, said: “In our call, I congratulated my Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan on his appointment and updated him on the dire humanitarian and environmental consequences of the Kakhovka disaster. He affirmed that Turkiye is working on providing humanitarian assistance to alleviate the crisis.” The two foreign ministers discussed the ongoing dam disaster in a phone call on Thursday. Also, on Thursday, Norwegian seismologists told America’s National Public Radio (NPR). that seismic stations in both Ukraine and Romania detected a blast on Tuesday at the dam site at close to 3:00 AM. Ukraine has accused Russia of causing the blast at the dam which has been exposed since Russia began its war on Ukraine, due to heavy fighting in the area around the dam.
Norwegian group NORSAR who monitor seismic networks across Europe, conducted the analysis on the dam, confirming that there was an explosion at the dam site on June 6 at 2:54 AM local time in Ukraine. The analysis by the group is the first independent evidence of an attack at the dam which was estimated to be the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. At a press conference on June 8, Ukraine’s President Zelensky said an international investigation into exactly what happened at the dam is necessary. As Zelensky commented: “The evidence should be carefully collected and presented.” Though the dam was stressed due to spring rains, Volker Oye, a seismologist for NORSAR who analyzed the data, told NPR: “We see a pulse of energy which is focused, which is typical of an explosion.” Oye said that explosions in that region of Ukraine are extremely rare. Meanwhile, Ukrainians claim that Russians used demolition explosives to destroy the dam. Thousands have been displaced from flood waters with the situation worsening in that region.
