The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is “hugely worse” than before the Kakhovka dam collapsed, the UN’s Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths said in an interview with the Associated Press on Friday.

“700,000 people are in need of drinking water … the ravages of flooding in one of the world’s most important breadbaskets will almost inevitably lead to lower grain exports, higher food prices around the world, and less to eat for millions in need,” Griffiths said.

He also stressed that “the truth is this is only the beginning of seeing the consequences of this act.”

At the same time, Griffiths confirmed that so far Russia has not given access to areas it controls for the U.N. to help flood victims.

According to him, the emergency response is essential to save lives, “but behind that you’ve got a huge, looming problem of a lack of proper drinking water for those 700,000 people” on both the Ukrainian-controlled and Russian-controlled sides of the river.

There is also the flooding of important agricultural land and a looming problem of providing cooling water for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which had been supplied from the dam, he added. In addition, Griffiths noted that waters also have rushed over areas with land mines from the war “and what we are bound to be seeing are those mines floating in places where people don’t expect them,” threatening adults and especially children.

“So it’s a cascade of problems, starting with allowing people to survive today, and then giving them some kind of prospects for tomorrow,” he said.

Griffiths said that because of the wide-ranging consequences “it’s almost inevitable” that the United Nations will launch a special appeal for more aid funds for Ukraine to deal with “a whole new order of magnitude” from the dam’s rupture. But he said he wants to wait a few weeks to see the economic, health and environmental consequences before announcing the appeal.

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