Updated with injury, death count.
Rescue workers in the western Russian city of Belgorod have recovered the bodies of 15 people buried beneath the rubble of an apartment building that collapsed earlier on Sunday after being struck by a Ukrainian missile.
“The main part of removing rubble from the apartment building on Shchors Street has been completed,” Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Monday morning. “The bodies of 15 people have been recovered.”
Gladkov added that 27 others had been injured in the explosion and subsequent building collapse, 17 of whom were still receiving medical care.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said earlier on Sunday that a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile hit a “residential district” in the city after it was intercepted by air defense systems.
It was not immediately possible to verify the Defense Ministry’s claim.
A video released by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry on Sunday showed firefighters and rescuers trying to remove a huge pile of tangled rubble.
Gladkov on Sunday posted a video to Telegram showing the collapsed apartment building.
“Following direct shell fire on a residential building… the entire entrance, from the tenth to the ground floor, collapsed,” Gladkov said at the time, condemning what he called “massive bombings” by the Ukrainian military.
Three other people were killed in a separate shelling attack on the city, the governor said early Monday.
One resident told RIA Novosti she was in a building corridor when an explosion went off and her husband was in a bedroom.
“He did not have time [to escape],” the woman was quoted as saying by the news agency.
Belgorod has been regularly targeted by Ukrainian drone and missile attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
AFP contributed reporting.