KYIV, July 10 - Dozens of Ukrainian emergency workers labored Sunday to pull people out of the rubble after a Russian rocket attack smashed into apartment buildings in eastern Ukraine. The strike killed at least 15 people and scores were thought to be still trapped a day later.

The strike late Saturday evening destroyed three buildings in a residential quarter of the town of Chasiv Yar, inhabited mostly by people who work in nearby factories, The Associated Press reported.

Ukraine’s Emergency Services said Sunday they have rescued five people from the rubble so far and have made contact with three others still trapped alive beneath the ruins. Another man was pulled alive from the rubble Sunday night.

Cranes and excavators worked alongside the rescue teams to clear away the ruins of one building, its sides completely shorn off by the impact of the strike. The rescuers kept on working in the rain despite the dangerous conditions. The thud of artillery on the nearby front line resonated just a few miles away, making some workers flinch and others run for cover when it got too close.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region that includes Chasiv Yar, said the town of about 12,000 was hit by Uragan rockets, which are fired from truck-borne systems. Chasiv Yar is 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Kramatorsk, a city that is a major target of Russian forces as they grind westward.

We didn’t hear any incoming sound, we just felt the impact. I ran to hide in the corridor with my dogs. Everyone I knew started calling me to find out what had happened. I was shaking like a leaf,” said Irina Shulimova, a 59-year-old retiree.

Front doors and balconies were torn apart in the blast, heaps of twisted metal and brick lay on the ground, and crushed summer cherries lay among shattered window panes.

Twenty-one people were killed earlier this month when an apartment building and recreation area came under rocket fire in the southern Odesa region. In addition, at least 19 people died when a Russian missile hit a shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk in late June. (ap/ez)