KYIV, Ukraine –
Dozens of Ukrainian emergency workers worked Sunday to pull people out of the rubble after a Russian missile attack smashed residential buildings in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 15 people. More than 20 people are believed to be still trapped.
The strike late Saturday destroyed three buildings in a residential area of the town of Chasov Yar, mostly inhabited by people who work in nearby factories.
On Sunday evening, rescuers were able to remove enough of the bricks and concrete to extricate a man who had been trapped for almost 24 hours. Rescuers put him on a stretcher and he was rushed to hospital.
Ukraine’s emergency services said the latest rescue brought the number of people pulled from the rubble to six. Earlier in the day, they contacted three others still alive trapped under the ruins.
Pavlo Kirilenko, governor of Donetsk Oblast, which includes Chasov Yar, said about 24 people were believed to be still trapped, including a 9-year-old child.
Cranes and excavators worked alongside rescue teams to clear the rubble of a building whose walls were completely knocked down by the impact. Rescuers continued to work in the rain despite the dangerous conditions. The pounding of artillery on the nearby front line reverberates only a few miles away, sending some workers flinching and others running for cover.
Kirilenko said the town of about 12,000 people was hit by Uragan missiles fired from truck-based systems. Chasov Yar is 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Kramatorsk, a city that is a prime target for Russian forces as they push west.
Later on Sunday, however, Vyacheslav Boytsov, deputy head of emergency services in the Donetsk region, told The Associated Press that four projectiles had hit the neighborhood and were likely Iskander missiles.
Residents said they heard at least three explosions and that many people were seriously injured in the blasts. A group of neighbors sat in the yard Sunday and quietly discussed who was injured and who was still missing.
“There was an explosion, all the windows blew out and I was thrown to the ground,” said Oksana, 45, who gave only her first name. She was in her third floor apartment when the rockets hit.
“My kitchen walls and balcony are completely gone,” she added, fighting back tears. “I called my children to tell them I was alive.
The 59-year-old pensioner Irina Shulimova remembers the horror. “We didn’t hear any incoming sound, we just felt the impact. I ran to hide in the hallway with my dogs. Everyone I knew started calling me to find out what happened. I was shaking like a leaf,” she said.
Front doors and balconies are shattered by the blast, and piles of twisted metal and bricks lie on the ground. Crushed summer cherries lay among the broken window panes.
A 30-year-old technology worker named Alexander said his mother was among those injured in the explosion.
“Thank God I wasn’t hurt, it was a miracle,” he said, touching the crucifix on his neck.
Although the home he shares with his mother is now destroyed, he said he has no plans to leave the neighborhood.
“I have enough money to last another month. Many people are already fed up with the refugees coming from the east – no one will feed us or support us there. It is better to stay,” said Alexander, who refused to gave his last name.
Another resident, who gave only his first name, Dima, had lived for more than 20 years on the ground floor of one of the buildings hollowed out in the attack. He paced back and forth through the rubble.
“As you can see, my home is lost,” he said.
Saturday’s attack was the latest in a series of strikes against civilian areas in the east, although Russia has repeatedly said it was only hitting targets of military value in the war.
Twenty-one people were killed earlier this month when a residential building and recreation area came under rocket fire in the southern Odesa region. At least 19 other people were killed when a Russian missile hit a shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk in late June.
There was no comment on the Chasov Yar attack at a Russian Defense Ministry briefing on Sunday.
Donetsk Oblast is one of two provinces, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbass region, where separatist rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Last week, Russia captured the city of Lysychansk, the last major stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk.
Russian forces are raising “real hell” in the Donbass, despite estimates that they have taken an operational pause, Luhansk Governor Sergey Haidai said on Saturday.
After the capture of Lisichansk, some analysts predicted that Moscow’s troops would likely take some time to rearm and regroup.
But “so far, there has been no operational pause announced by the enemy. They are still attacking and shelling our lands with the same intensity as before,” Haiday said.
He later said Ukrainian forces had destroyed some ammunition depots and barracks used by the Russians.
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