“Minutes of silence” will forever be remembered. The story of an eyewitness to the tragedy in the Dnipro

Anton Zimin stood in front of the ruins of concrete walls, glass, washing machines and shattered doors, which a few hours ago were apartments of two entrances destroyed by a Russian missile in the Dnipro. Being a link in the “living chain”, he monotonously passed from hand to hand the fragments of the lives of people he knew – the remains of the kitchen, balconies, someone’s boot, backpack or jacket that no one will wear again. So the hours passed until the “minutes of silence” came. It was the rescuers who tried to hear the voices of those who could survive under the rubble. Some did succeed. However, 46 people died. Anton is a brand manager and one of the hundreds of people who don’t care, who gathered almost immediately after the explosion on January 14 and went to sort out the rubble, from under which rescuers retrieved the bodies of his neighbors over the next four days. The man told “Ukrainian Pravda. Life” in detail that he will forever remember one of the darkest days in the history of this war. Next is his direct speech. Day one “The light from the flame instantly filled the children’s room” On January 14, I followed the situation in the country from 6 in the morning, because the first arrivals of “unknown what” began in Kyiv. (Remember, that day in Kyiv, the siren sounded after the explosions). On this day, many residents of Kyiv wrote: “There is something unusual going on,” “What was that? An unusual sound of an explosion,” etc. Everyone was thinking, “What is this? Ballistics? New missiles from Iran?” This continued until 9-10 o’clock. Then it subsided and I continued to work. In Dnipro, as everywhere else, there are electricity cut-off schedules. When our lights went out again, I decided to go to bed to save energy and work at night. Otherwise, it doesn’t work out very well now. Who would have thought that I would need this energy for something completely different. Woke up at about 3:00 p.m. He took the phone and started reading the news. There they already wrote about Lviv Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Sumy Oblast, Vinnytsia Oblast, Odesa Oblast… Flipping through the news feeds, a thought flashed by: “What about the Dnipro and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast?”. You won’t believe it, but at that very moment there was an explosion. The sound was very unusual – as if several layers were superimposed on each other. And there was a strange echo. I tried to get up from the sofa and realized that the floor was moving under my feet. If you have ever tried to go from a boat to a pier or from an inflatable mattress to the edge of the pool, you must understand this feeling – when the ground leaves from under your feet, and they simply part. This lasted for several seconds. Then my 10-year-old daughter ran out of the nursery – she was crying a lot. In almost a year of full-scale war, she had never been so scared. I realized that everything was happening quite close. Running out of the bedroom into the corridor, I glanced through the doorway into the children’s room – there was a big column of smoke outside the window. At first it was gray – a mixture of dust, cement and concrete. And then the cars parked near the house where the rocket hit caught fire. Then the smoke turned black. The daughter says that in addition to the sound of the explosion, she was also frightened by the light from the flame – for a moment it filled her room. Having understood where the rocket had landed, I decided that I should run to the rubble. My wife helped me get ready, got some water; daughter – gave a headlamp recently given by a relative. As soon as he ran outside, he felt the air saturated with smoke and dust, permeated with the smell of burnt rubber, gasoline, plastic and wood. Analysis of the rubble of a house destroyed by the Russians in Dnipro. Photo: Anton Zimin Read also: Mykhailo Korenovskyi, a boxing coach and father of two children, died in the Dnipro “You can’t be distracted, because the next piece of someone’s kitchen is coming your way” friends, or acquaintances, or friends of acquaintances, neighbors, classmates, dog lovers, club mates, athletes, motorists, etc. When I arrived at “that house”, there were already many people there – both civilians and policemen. Everyone who was nearby ran to help those who remained under the rubble. At first, it was all a relatively disorganized affair. A lot of people gathered to help. At some point, I just started to feel redundant, because until everyone properly organized themselves, it seemed that half of the people were just getting in the way. We turned over burnt out cars; they dragged huge pieces of concrete with rebar sticking out in all directions; mutilated refrigerators, washing machines and other things that were thrown outside by the blast wave. You had to be very careful all the time, because while you were dragging a piece of concrete, a group of people from the side threw an even bigger piece of concrete in your direction, shouting: “Be careful, feet!”. Meanwhile, something falls from the broken apartments onto the main pile of rubble. Entrances of the house on Naberezhnaya Peremogy Street, 118, crushed by a Russian missile. Photo: Anton Zimin Someone parked during the explosion and started helping. Someone came from Zaporizhzhia. Someone came out from the neighboring entrance of the same building. All the time, a woman was fussing between us, talking loudly: – Guys, what can I help you with? What to take? Where to carry? – Go home, make tea for the boys, that way you will also help. – But there is no home anymore… That’s what she said in response and continued to pull the iron. At such moments, the brain wakes up for a moment from monotonous work and the heart aches. But you can’t get distracted, because the next piece of someone’s kitchen is heading your way. I worked mostly at the lower level. Some climbed up, but the police asked them to leave so as not to disturb the rescuers who came to do their work. We lined up in chains and handed each other various construction debris: crushed walls, fittings, pieces of doors, concrete remains of balconies, etc. When you do this kind of work and overturn burned cars, you hardly feel anything. You just act. This is pure mechanics. But when someone’s boot, skates, backpack, jacket looks out from among the crushed junk… then you understand that it was part of someone’s life. Read also: “All life ahead…should have been”. The stories of the children killed by a Russian rocket in the Dnipro high-rise “Moments of silence” will forever be remembered. The moments when everyone around falls silent to hear the voices under the rubble will forever be remembered. And the moments when someone still speaks from under the rubble during such silence, give hope and, frankly, frighten at the same time… We continued to drag stones, furniture and mutilated metal. Several hours passed like this. We cleared enough space so that fire trucks could get as close as possible to the epicenter of events and rescuers could climb to the upper floors to bring people down with fire ladders. Debris clearance in Dnipro on January 14. Photo: Anton Zimin Massive rescue equipment, tractors and excavators also arrived, and all civilians were asked to disperse as much as possible. While I was resting, an acquaintance, whom I had not seen for several years, approached me. It turned out that he was not far from the street at the time of the explosion and also ran to help clear the rubble. We talked – each told his story that evening. It was already around 21:00. For the first time during this time, I looked into the phone and learned that many acquaintances, relatives of our acquaintances were injured and killed in this explosion, my daughter’s classmate was injured – the girl Mira, who was operated on; a girl with whom my daughter used to be friends and danced died – the same 15-year-old Maria… When I assessed the situation around me and realized that I was redundant here, I decided that it was time for me to switch to the information front and start telling more , collect money, write where else you can donate and who to help. I know it works because I have been doing it for many months since the start of the war. Until 2022, I was a member of the editorial board of the PlayUA.net gaming portal. Now I can publish there as a guest author. The audience, partners and just friends of the portal know me well. It helped spread the word. Before heading home, I decided to take a drive, get some fresh air and drink some coffee. The employees of the gas station understood from my appearance where I had come from and decided to pass the coffee to those who were still left in the rubble. I took all the coffee and took it to my friends, who at that time had already managed to check the shattered apartments in search of survivors, take out those who were found, and stand “to hold the border” around the scene of the tragedy to prevent random passers-by. Returned home around 10:30 p.m. Employees of one of the gas stations handed over coffee for those who will remain to sort out the debris. Photo: Anton Zimin Day two My wife and I spent the first half of the next day helping our child get through this painful reality. We didn’t want her to learn about a classmate or dance acquaintance from the news or school chat. My wife came up with a plan, which we followed: we bought a flower, got a candle and took our daughter to the place of events. These actions were agreed in advance with a psychologist in order to experience all this together with the child, and not to leave him alone. When we got to the house and my daughter started asking about the people who lived there, we told the facts about her acquaintances. The details, of course, have been left out for the time being… She stuttered and looked at the hole in the high-rise building. All that moved on her face were tears under her eyes… We hugged, cried together, put a flower near the tree and lit a candle, saying that when it burns out, our pain will pass. And then we have to help those who need this help now. Anton, together with his wife and daughter, came to the scene of the tragedy to honor the memory of the dead and help his daughter cope with the loss. Photo: Anton Zimin Read also: “Mom survived on a piece of kitchen.” Stories from the destroyed house in the Dnipro “Some people have only slippers and a robe left from the destroyed house.” The next half day, after gathering information about the needs of the victims, I went shopping and brought respirators, a lot of film for windows, bags, etc. People from broken homes need EVERYTHING. At the same time, everything is very individual. Some had nothing left: only slippers and a robe, in which they were taken from the floor without walls. Some people in remote driveways are relatively “fine”, but there are no windows, food, gas, electricity, etc. There is a friend’s mother who survived in a neighboring apartment, but part of her entrance is missing and the apartment is most likely no longer suitable for living. Now it seems that the most basic needs are covered. But there are still many unsolved questions ahead and help will be needed more than once. There are acquaintances whose only children survived, waiting for their parents on the street. They were going to someone’s birthday party. Children were injured by the blast wave. Father’s body was found relatively quickly. Mother’s body – after 12 hours of searching on the lowest floors. We are talking about Iryna and Maksym, who moved to Dnipro from Nikopol. After the tragedy, 14-year-old Karolina and 9-year-old Timur remained orphans. Now, humanitarian centers, schools and the area around the destroyed building live exclusively with issues related to the tragedy. “Victory” will take a long time to recover from this event, although, of course, life and development will not stop anything. Currently, incredible pain permeates Dnipro, Ukraine and abroad. They wrote to me from the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. They try to help the victims as much as they can. This tragedy, last year and not only will remain in the memory of Ukrainians forever. Diana Krechetova, “Ukrainian truth. Life” Cover photo: Anton Zimin



Original Source Link