Kyiv: The death toll from a Russian attack in southern Ukraine on a site where people had gathered to receive humanitarian aid rose to 31 Tuesday, with dozens of people still missing, as a wave of overnight strikes targeted power plants across the country, damaged hospitals and wounded scores of people. Teams of rescuers and volunteers continued to search the cratered blast site of a destroyed aid facility and shelter in Komyushuvakha, a village in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, hoping to find more than 45 missing residents alive under the rubble. Instead, more bodies were pulled out and carried away in white plastic sheeting. “The scale of the tragedy is terrifying,” Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the region’s military administration, wrote in an online post. “This is one of the worst tragedies in terms of the number of civilian victims in our region since the start of the full-scale war.” Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions, triggering emergency power cuts, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an online post that noted the barrage coincided with US elections. “The Russians think America won’t notice this signal of theirs,” he said. “But we need to notice and stop such terror. We need to help Ukraine defend its skies; otherwise, Russia will never stop its missile strikes.” Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia where Russian bunker-busting bombs, filled with nearly 1.5 tonnes of explosives, were used in Monday’s attack.
The dead included four police officers and two rescue workers, Semikin said Tuesday. At least five people were hurt. In the northeast region of Kharkiv, a combined Russian missile and drone attack wounded at least 62 people, local authorities said.