Floods Afflict Ukraine as It Tries to Control the Coronavirus, 24 June 2020

Rain-swollen rivers inundated towns, breached dams and stranded villagers in western Ukraine on Wednesday, in what officials called the region’s worst flooding in more than a decade — with the response this time complicated by the coronavirus epidemic. As the water rose, one hospital was partially evacuated, but left behind were those with Covid-19, in a rescue that Ukraine’s prime minister said was carried out very carefully to avoid spreading the contagion...Dams, bridges, dikes and roads were washed away in the Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Chernivtsi regions. More than 200 towns and villages flooded and roads to 34 settlements were cut off by high water, officials said. At least three people died, including two whose car was swept away in a roiling river, and one person is missing...[E]nvironmentalists say that years of illegal logging in the once-dense Carpathian forests have left the area prone to flooding...