Dnipro, Ukraine
CNN
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in DniproThere is grief, exhaustion and anger.
on Saturday afternoon, as families relaxed at home in central Ukrainian In the city, a Russian cruise missile hit a nine-story apartment building overlooking a park near the river, killing at least 40 people and injuring another 75, while 46 were reported missing.
The main part of that building is now gone, transformed into a mountain of jumbled concrete. The apartment was sliced in half when the missile — with a warhead of nearly one metric ton — penetrated all the way into the basement.
Svitlana Lischinska, who lives in a neighboring building, said the tremor shook the walls of her house.
“At the same time, my daughter, who had gone for a walk with her friend, called me and told about the loud bangs. I ran to him. The closer I got, the more hell it started to feel like,” she said.
“When I got there, I froze – the two entrances were no longer there. They had turned into a pile of concrete and a big hole. It was a picture of doom. Everyone was in a kind of swoon, because this belief It was impossible to do that this was happening to us.
About 36 hours after the strike, smoke was still billowing in the frozen air as heat was released from its impact. Rescuers climbed over the wreckage, their hopes of finding anyone else alive were diminishing by the hour.
According to Ukrainian authorities, another 35 people are missing. The last person to be rescued was heard calling after midnight on Saturday. It took nine hours to reach him, by which time he had developed severe hypothermia.
Small groups of people stood quietly behind a hoop Sunday night, some still hoping for a miracle, others holding flowers or lighting candles. Some wiped away tears as they watched bulldozers smash through concrete and bent steel sheets.
Above them, on the fifth floor, firefighters removed loose debris dangerously close to someone’s living room. Torn curtains were fluttering in the wind.
On the top floor, half the kitchen is located on the edge of the void. Not long ago, a birthday party was held for one of the children living there, the occasion was captured in an Instagram post. His father, a renowned boxing coach, was killed in the attack.
Olha Nevenchnaya said that she had passed by the building only half an hour earlier. “I have many friends and close people here. Many, many …,” she said, before breaking down.
According to Natalia Babachenko, an adviser to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, more than 30 people are in hospital – 12 of them in serious condition. A 9-year-old girl is also among the seriously injured.
Most of the injured were taken to the Mechnikova hospital, where chief doctor Serhiy Rezchenko said people were covered in blood and dust, with their clothes torn. Pieces of metal and concrete were embedded in every part of his body.
However, amidst the disappointment, there were also moments of joy. Maksim Omelianenko, a soldier serving in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, ran to Dnieper to find out if his mother was still alive.
“I learned that, most likely by some miracle, my mother survived, trapped under the stove, in a piece of the kitchen, the only surviving part of my apartment on the 9th floor,” he posted instagram,
According to Ukrainian officials, the missile that hit the building was a Kh-22.
The Ukrainian military says it does not have the capability to shoot down such missiles, which were designed to sink ships, not destroy apartment buildings.
The Kh-22 was designed in the Soviet era and is notoriously inaccurate. Nevertheless, there are no military or infrastructure targets within several hundred meters of the destroyed building.
The military says more than 200 Kh-22s have been launched against Ukraine since the start of the invasion. Last September, an attack on a shopping center in nearby Kremenchuk killed at least 18 people.
Naberezhna Peremohi – Embankment of Victory – the apartment building stood in the name of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
“When he gave this name to this street, he had in mind the victory over the Nazis in World War II,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday. “And we must do everything we can to stop Russification, just as the free world once stopped Nazism.”
Now the building at 118 Naberezhna Peremohi will be remembered as another war symbol in Dnieper.
A stunned Dnipro resident, Olena Loyan, stood outside cursing the Russians at the scene of devastation on Sunday.
“I just hate them,” she said. “The children, the people, died.”