Tetyana Tarasevych remembers how life got better in Ukraine’s southeast nearly 70 years ago after the vast Kakhovka water reservoir was built near her home in the village of Hrushivka. As the vast reservoir has lost around three-quarters of its volume since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam last week, she is now using glass jars to catch rainwater. Her village in the Dnipropetrovsk region faces an acute water crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without normal access to drinking water across a swathe of the south, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “When the reservoir appeared, we started to live it up. We piped drinking water to the main streets… and now look. Only tears,” the 80-year-old Tarasevych told Reuters. Water taps were turned off for many of the village’s residents last week. Those who had water storage pools rushed to fill them up.