The Norwegian seismological institute "Norsar" registered an "explosion" from the direction of the region where the Ukrainian Kakhovka dam is located at the time of its destruction on Tuesday, a senior official of the institute said today.

The statement, which did not attribute the cause of the blast to either side, supported the idea that the dam, which is in an area under Russian control, had failed due to damage it had sustained in an earlier bombing. "We are sure there was an explosion," said Ben Dando.

According to this independent institute, the explosion occurred at 2:54 a.m. local time, at a place whose coordinates correspond to the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River. The magnitude was "between 1 and 2", specifies Norsar, who has not yet calculated how many tons of TNT there are. "It's not a weak blast," Dando said. It was detected by the measuring station in Bukovina, Romania, which is located about 620 kilometers from the place where it happened.

Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the collapse of the dam, which flooded villages and towns on both banks of the river, including parts of the city of Kherson, forcing thousands of people to evacuate.