More than 1,000 people were crowded into a railway station in eastern Ukraine when it was hit by rockets on Friday, an eyewitness told.
Forty people died, including 10 children when missiles exploded at Kramatorsk station as civilians were queuing to evacuate, according to the local mayor.
Images from the scene show bodies and abandoned bags lying on the platform.
Ukraine said Russia targeted civilians, but Russia has denied the attack.
Nathan Mook, an aid worker who saw people crowding at the station, counted between five and 10 explosions: “Two minutes after we had driven by, you feel it before you hear it: the boom, the explosion.”
Mr Mook said he saw well over 1,000 people at the station just before the attack happened, and the regional prosecutor’s office said nearly 4,000 people were there at the time, mainly women and children. More than 80 people were wounded, officials said.
Officials said a temporary waiting area had been hit and many of the wounded were in a grave condition. Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko alleged that a Tochka-U missile armed with cluster munitions had been used.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there were no soldiers at the station. “This is an evil that has no limits,” the president said, accusing Russia of cynically targeting civilians when it could not win on the battlefield.
Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine’s armed forces of carrying out the attack and using civilians as a “human shield” and a Russian-backed separatist leader said it was a Ukrainian “provocation”. But Mr Kyrylenko said it was another example of Russian fakes and cynicism, aimed at sowing panic.
For days, crowded trains have been leaving the east, after regional leaders appealed to residents to flee Russia’s invading forces.
Busloads of evacuees have been arriving at the few remaining stations still open, from towns and cities that have come under Russian bombardment. Luhansk administration leader Serhiy Haidai said the town of Popasna was at particular risk of attack, and that 14,000 civilians were still there.
Russia has shifted its military campaign to eastern Ukraine after a series of defeats around Kyiv and other areas.
The Kremlin is now aiming to seize the two big eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and its forces are moving south and west towards Kramatorsk and its northern neighbour Slovyansk.
Shortly before the missile strike, after 10:30 local time (07:30 GMT), Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko posted details of train departures on his Facebook page.
Debris from one of the rockets could be seen lying on the grass near the station. The message in Russian za detei, meaning for or on behalf of the children, had been daubed on the missile in white.
Russia’s defence ministry insisted it did not use the type of Tochka-U missile that was fired, whereas the Ukrainian military did.
However, analysts point to images and videos on social media that appear to show the Russian military using the Tochka-U. The Donetsk governor accused the Russian military of using the Tochka-U to detonate cluster munitions in the attack on Kramatorsk.
“One of our guys at the warehouse said he had seen Ukrainian air defence intercept one of the rockets,” said Nathan Mook. “These were missiles, he could see the wings on the missile as it was intercepted.”
Mr Mook’s aid group World Central Kitchen was distributing food at the station. He said they were heading to a warehouse to pick up flour and were working on setting up a distribution hub at the station.
