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Ukrainian dam explosion leads to discovery of 500-year-old boat

Video shows crews removing sections of boat from the riverbed

A boat estimated to be up to 500 years old was found after an explosion at a Ukranian dam in early June.

Water levels plummeted along the Dnieper River following the June 6 explosion of the Kakhovka Dam and exposed the seven-meter boat.

The Khortytsia National Reserve said the boat was discovered in an area that was previously underwater near the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant.

Footage in the media player above shows crews removing sections of the boat from the riverbed, as well as the remains of a bridge built in 1943 that had been submerged when the Kakhovka dam was built in 1956.

“It’s a deep-water boat that we have measured at seven meters long (22 feet) and more than 80 centimeters (2 feet) wide. These were quite common, both here and in other countries, but each was built in its own unique way,” Vyacheslav Sarychev, a historian working at the site, told Current Time.

Andriy Denysenko, a restoration specialist at the Khortytsia National Reserve, said about 70% of the boat had been preserved.

The boat is undergoing preservation and restoration and officials plan to make it a museum exhibit.

The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, located in a Russian-occupied part of southern Ukraine, also led to widespread flooding and destruction along the Dnieper River.


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