By Karol Badohal, Barbara Erling and Kacper Pempel
WYRYKI-WOLA, Poland (Reuters) -Pensioner Tomasz Wesolowski had a lucky escape on Wednesday when a drone crashed into his house as he was watching news on television about Russian drones flying into Polish airspace.
Wesolowski was downstairs when the drone struck the upper part of his home at 0630 a.m. (0430 GMT), destroying the roof, damaging a bedroom and scattering debris across the garden.
“I turned on the TV, and all the news was about this massive drone flight, and after a while, I heard a plane flying over… and suddenly something boomed, the light fell from the ceiling in the downstairs living room,” he told Reuters in the eastern Polish village of Wyryki-Wola.
“I ran out into the yard, and I saw the whole roof in shreds, everything was destroyed.”
Wesolowski’s wife, Alicja, said she also ran outside and saw a plane overhead. She wondered whether they were being bombed or that someone would start shooting at her. Neither was hurt.
Poland said drones had entered its airspace overnight as Russia carried out an attack on neighbouring Ukraine, and that it shot some of them down.
Twelve drones and debris from a rocket had been found afterwards in various locations, officials said.
Urszula Zaprzaluk, a neighbour, also heard the roar of a plane overhead.
“Suddenly I heard what sounded like an explosion. I jumped up, my legs were shaking… I went out to the balcony,” she said. “I saw through the trees that my neighbour’s roof was missing.”
Her own yard was covered in debris, her chimney and some tiles were damaged, and a window in an outhouse was broken.
“I am simply scared of this war (across the border in Ukraine),” she said.
She recalled her mother telling her stories about World War Two, and added: “It’s better if it doesn’t come to us.”
(Reporting by Karol Badohal in Warsaw, Barbara Erling, Kacper Pempel and Denis Dziuba in Wyryki-Wola, Writing by Alan Charlish, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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