Mrs. Svitlana takes out the cane, clay from the room, and icons that belong to her mother-in-law. Almost half a century ago, she had moved to the house of her future husband in the Kherson region and had been working there as a teacher for 45 years, and now she is left alone with a disaster: without a husband, without parents, and in fact, without a home, where was the collection of 2,000 books that she had collected during her entire marriage.

On that day of the explosion of the Kakhovska Dam, the woman did not even think that the water could reach her home. During Svitlana’s life, the village of Fedorivka had never known such a natural flood of the river, which would have reached even a yard. The distance to the Ingulets reservoir is quite short – 2 km. So the woman had watered the potatoes in the garden and calmly from time to time checked how far the river came from the banks.

The situation didn’t seem critical until lunch. But suddenly the water did not just flow into the garden, but began to flood everything with incredible speed.

At first, Svitlana rescued birds – chickens and ducklings. Then she gathered documents. Neighbors came to help. The men unscrewed the motor from the well and left it on a table in the house, but the electronics were quickly flooded with water and covered with mud. The same with all appliances: boiler, water heater, etc.

Neighbors helped remove the bread machine and microwave oven from the house. They didn’t have time to save anything else. What Mrs. Svitlana regrets most is the loss of family photos, which are no longer possible to find and restore.

The water level flooded the woman’s house up to the roof – that’s 3.5 meters. People swam in boats between the tops of the roofs and helped save the beehives because the bees flew away and settled on the tops. The stream carried everything that could pass through the windows and doors from the yard and Svitlana’s house. A brick stove remained from the surviving interior, and everything else, including the walls, now needs to be restored.

Svitlana threw most of the things from the house into the garbage or burned them. To rebuild a house, the pension won’t be enough. The woman hopes that eventually studying will start at a local school, and she will be able to rebuild her home at least a little.

In the meantime, we, together with World Vision International, supported Mrs. Svitlana and other residents of Fedorivka with humanitarian aid: food, drinking water, water bottles, and other things that people required so much in this hour of need.