Downstream from the breached Kakhovka dam, Ukrainian police and troops in Kherson city are evacuating people out from inundated areas in inflatable boats, most clutching only a few documents and pets. Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for the strategically important dam, taken by Moscow in the early hours of the war, being ripped open early Tuesday, which unleashed a gush of water on the Dnipro River and is forcing thousands to flee. One woman, Nataliya Korzh, 68, had had to swim part of the way to escape from her house. She emerges from a rescue boat barefoot, her legs covered with scratches, her hands trembling from cold. "All my rooms are underwater. Everything is floating, the refrigerator, the freezer are floating, the bedside tables are floating.... We have become used to the shelling. But a natural disaster like this is a nightmare," she tells AFP. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES