TERNOPIL, Ukraine (Reuters) -Ihor Cherepanskyi holds out little hope of seeing his great-grandmother alive. She is buried in the rubble of her apartment block in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil which stands half-destroyed after a Russian drone and missile attack.
The top floors of the building have collapsed leaving a huge hole in the structure. Rescue workers scour twisted metal and lumps of concrete for signs of survivors more than 24 hours after the strike.
Authorities say at least 26 people are confirmed to have been killed in Ternopil, many of them in this building.
A further 22 are missing, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday, meaning it is likely to surpass the worst civilian toll in a Russian attack this year after 32 people died in the capital Kyiv on July 31.
“My great-grandmother is still under the rubble,” Cherepanskyi said as he watched cranes operating beside the building. “I still hope to find at least her body to fulfil her last wish, which was to be buried next to my great-grandfather.”
‘NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE’
The strike on Ternopil, some 370 km (240 miles) west of the capital Kyiv, was a relatively rare large-scale assault on the west of the country, which is far from the front lines and considered safer than central and eastern parts of Ukraine.
“Over the years, you start to get used to it (the war), but when it affects you personally, you completely rethink it and look at it differently,” 37-year-old Cherepanskyi said.
“And you understand that this is not how it should be in life. That innocent people … what kind of strategic object is this?” he added, pointing to the flattened apartments.
Russia denies targeting civilians as it pounds targets across Ukraine. It has hit power stations and gas storage in recent months, causing lengthy outages of electricity, running water and heating for millions of people as temperatures plunge.
Thousands of civilians have been killed in attacks which regularly involve hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles on a single night. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022.
A SCRAMBLE TO FIND RELATIVES
Rescue efforts in Ternopil were expected to last into Friday, following the strike in the early hours of Wednesday.
Before resuming work on Thursday, firemen and other rescue workers stood in line at the scene, heads bowed, to mark a minute’s silence. Toys, flowers and clothes were left in a small pile as a memorial to the dead and missing.
Smoke continued to rise from the top of the building, and debris was scattered over the ground on either side.
“There is nothing left, there’s only smouldering nothingness where (her) apartment used to be,” Cherepanskyi said.
He recalled how he had climbed up to the fifth floor after the strike but could not reach his great-grandmother who lived on the sixth.
“The ceiling collapsed, and I couldn’t get any further. But I kept dialling the phone and hearing beeps. I screamed, I shouted, but…”
At least three children were among the dead, according to officials.
Oksana Kobel, speaking on Wednesday, said she was hoping that her son would be found alive. He had been in a ninth-floor apartment at the time of the attack.
“I went to work, heard the explosions. I called him and said ‘Bohdan, go to the shelter, get dressed.’ He answered ‘Mom, I am already up, everything will be fine’.”
(Additional reporting by Andriy Perun in Ternopil; Writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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