BORODYANKA, Ukraine (Reuters) -Ukraine recovered the bodies of seven people buried in the rubble of two destroyed high-rise housing blocks in the town of Borodyanka near Kyiv on Monday, the state emergencies service said.
More than two hundred rescue workers have been scrambling to find missing residents since Ukraine retook the city west of Kyiv after Russian troops began pulling back from the region late last month.
So far, the bodies of 19 people have been found in the destroyed buildings, the state emergencies service said in a statement.
Mechanical diggers on Monday cleared concrete rubble at the foot of the charred remains of an apartment building. Some rescuers stood by with sniffer dogs while others peered among the debris with flashlights, looking for people underneath. One body lay in a bag at the side of the road.
“We don’t know the final number of people under the debris. We just have information that during the shelling from this particular building there were calls from people who were under the debris,” ministry press officer Svetlana Vodolaga told Reuters.
In other parts of the town on Monday, volunteers cleared rubble from a children’s playground. Workers lifted a burnt-out Russian armoured vehicle onto the back of a truck.
“It’s shocking (seeing this). What else can I say,” said Borodyanka resident, Maria Glushenko, 68. “People died, young people died. Such good people.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the situation in the town of Borodyanka is “significantly more dreadful” than in nearby Bucha, where Ukraine has accused Russia of war crimes.
Moscow denies that allegation.
(Reporting by Max Hunder; Editing by David Gregorio and Lincoln Feast.)
