Firefighters dug through the charred remains of a home on Saturday morning in search of the body of a child, the last member of a family killed in a devastating fire caused by a Russian drone strike.
Four bodies were already lying in bags in the yard. Investigators found the charred remains of the father in a hallway and the mother and two children in the bathroom.
A total of seven people were killed when Russian drones hit a fuel depot late on Friday night in one of the deadliest attacks in Kharkiv, the northeastern city that has come under a series of rocket attacks in recent weeks. Flaming fuel poured onto the street from the damaged warehouse, setting fire to a row of houses so quickly that two families were burned alive in their homes.
“The family was held hostage by the fire inside their home,” said Serhii Bolvinov, Kharkiv’s chief police investigator, after firefighters and investigators dug for hours through the smoldering wreckage. “All of them were very badly burned and DNA testing will be needed for the final conclusions.”
Oleksandr Kobylev, head of Kharkiv’s regional police service for war crimes, said the Russians attacked with Iran-supplied Shahed drones that struck just before 11 p.m.
“The burning fuel was flowing into the yards,” he said. “People were doomed.”
Fifteen houses were burned in the fire. In addition to the seven dead, three people were injured in the fire, but more than 50 others managed to escape unharmed.
“It was hot to stand 150 meters from the fire,” Mr Kobylev said. “Fences, cars, houses were on fire.”
On Saturday, the road was covered in black sticky mud, mixed with residue from charred fuel. A small fire was still burning in the warehouse on a hill, but the worst damage was on the hillside, where houses were reduced to skeletons.
“We heard the Shaheds flying,” said Olena, 36, who lives in a house on top of the hill, closer to the oil depot. “It was a hum, like a low-flying plane. Then a bang and a flash. Three explosions.”
Like several other survivors interviewed, she asked that only her first name be published for security reasons.
“I called 911 at 10:46 p.m.,” he said. “When we saw burning fuel flowing into our yard, I grabbed my 1-year-old twins and ran through the yards.”
Survivors described a river of fire flowing through their yards just five minutes after the drone strikes exploded.
“I smelled diesel. It looked like lava from a volcano,” said Mykhaylo, 49, who escaped with his brother Oleksandr, 35, his brother’s girlfriend and their dog. they even managed to move their cars away. “In 10 minutes the whole house was on fire,” he said.
But two families were not spared.
Olha and Hryhory Putiatin died along with their three children, Lyosha, 7, Misha, 4, and Pasha, 10 months. After hours of searching, firefighters found Misha separated from his parents under a pile of rubble in the kitchen.
Volodymyr, a relative, said the family usually hid in the garden cellar when there were air raids. “I was worried they would choke on the smoke,” she said. “But this time they probably ran outside and saw that the yard was on fire, so they hid in the bathroom,” he said.
An emergency worker hugged the children’s grandmother, Tetiana, to prevent her from seeing the bodies. “I am a mother. I want to see!” he shouted.
“How can I bury my children and grandchildren?” she shouted.
Several houses down the street, one resident, Vadym, stood over the shrouded bodies of his parents, Anatoly, 70, and Svitlana, 65. His father was bedridden after a stroke and his mother was taking care of him, Vadym said . who lives nearby with his wife, Natalia.
“Mom screamed, ‘The house is on fire!’ he said. “We arrived in 10 minutes, but the fire is already raging inside the house. The whole street was burning. The houses were burning like matchboxes.”
His parents had never left Kharkiv during two years of war, but the fire consumed them, he said. “They couldn’t escape. It was a river of burnt diesel.”
