Rescue teams are digging through the wreckage of a shopping centre in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih after a Russian drone attack killed 16 people and injured 130.
Two drones hit the busy centre in quick succession in what is known as a double-tap strike, in which a second hit follows shortly after the first, often as emergency workers and passers-by arrive to help. Four people are still missing.
President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack, describing it as despicable, and renewed his appeal to international partners to strengthen Ukraine's air defences.
“Double-tap strikes cause the greatest harm to the very people who rush in to help the injured.”
Emergency crews worked through the night with heavy machinery and search dogs, clearing concrete and twisted metal by hand in places where cranes could not reach.
“People ran towards the building to help after the first explosion, and then the second one came,” one local resident told reporters near the police cordon.
Local officials said support was being made available to the families of those killed and to residents whose homes and businesses nearby had been damaged.
Kryvyi Rih, an industrial city in central Ukraine, has been struck repeatedly since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow. Russia has consistently denied deliberately targeting civilians during the war.
International organisations and foreign governments expressed condolences to the victims' families, and several renewed calls for greater protection of civilians, noting that attacks on crowded public places carry an especially heavy human cost.
Rescuers said the search would continue until everyone reported missing had been accounted for, while hospitals across the region continued to treat the wounded.
