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A survivor of the Mariupol, Ukraine, theater bombing on March 16 said people "dived into the rubble" to rescue others.
Dmytro Velychko told The Economist that he was on a coffee break from volunteering in the theater's kitchen when Russian forces struck the building, which was serving as a makeshift shelter for 1,300 Ukrainians after Russia invaded the eastern European country on February 24.
He told the Economist that the blast sounded like "a champagne cork popping" followed by "a thick cloud of glass, stones and dust."
"Then the shrieking began — the cries for help, the panic," he said.
He said that those in the kitchen at the time of the attack were directly hit by the bomb.
Velychko told The Economist that the resulting rescue mission consisted of two police officers and wounded civilians leading each other.
"We combed the theatre for people, responding in the main to the groans," Velychko told The Economist. "There were people with broken legs who we had to help walk. If we could we took them out on stretchers. But there were also severed arms, legs and heads all around. There was nothing we could do there."
He continued: "Self-preservation instincts could have kicked in, but no one ran, and people dived into the rubble. We tried to save people. We didn't lose our humanity."
Velychko said he believes the reported numbers of those who died in the blast are exaggerated. Mariupol officials told Reuters on Friday that 300 died.
Velychko told The Economist that while there were 1,300 civilians in the theater on March 10, by the time the bombs dropped on March 16, the majority of them had moved out.
He estimated that there were no more than 300 people inside the theater at the time of the attack.
"Perhaps 100 died, and almost all of them were in the less protected spaces above ground," he told the Economist.
City council officials have accused Russia of "purposefully and cynically" destroying the theater.
