Death Toll From Russian Strike On Kharkiv Hardware Store Hits 16

Kharkiv, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th May, 2024) The death toll from Russian strikes on a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv rose to 16 Sunday, the regional governor said, as rescuers searched the charred debris for bodies.

"Unfortunately, 16 have already been recorded dead," Oleg Synegubov, Kharkiv regional governor, said on Telegram, while 43 were wounded.

Russian strikes hit the Epitsentr superstore on Saturday, sparking a massive fire that makes the dead hard to identify.

Police said six of the dead had been identified, including a 12-year-old girl who was visiting the city, while several people were still listed as missing.

Police were asking relatives to give DNA samples to help identify bodies in the ruined store in the northeastern outskirts of the city.

Earlier, Synegubov said two of those killed worked in the hypermarket.

A video posted by police showed staff and shoppers in the store before an explosion erupted, followed by flying debris and darkness.

"It took 16 hellish hours to tame the flames" of the subsequent fire, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram.

- 'Everything was burning' -

Still wearing her uniform, Lyubov, a cleaner at the store, recalled how she escaped the building as the fire broke out.

"It happened all of a sudden. We didn't understand at first, everything went dark and everything started falling on our heads," she said.

"It was good that my phone lit up, thanks to the flashlight I found where to go, but in front of us everything was burning already."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the daylight attack on an "obviously civilian" target.

"Only madmen like Putin are capable of killing and terrorising people in such a vile way," he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered his troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, is just a few dozen kilometres from the border and regularly comes under attack from Russian missiles.

Russia's TASS state news agency cited a security source who said the hypermarket strike destroyed a "military store and command post" inside the shopping centre.