Natalia, 37, spoke to Reuters on Sunday after she was evacuated from the factory, a huge complex built under Joseph Stalin and designed with an underground network of bunkers and tunnels to withstand the attack.
Describing what happened to her during her time in the underground bunkers, Natalia said: “I was afraid that the bunker would not withstand the bombing. My fear was terrible.”
She added: “When the bunker started shaking, I got hysterical, and my husband can attest to that: I was afraid the bunker would collapse. We didn’t see the sun for a long time.”
Natalya was speaking in the village of Bizymin in a region of Donetsk region controlled by Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists, 30 kilometers east of Mariupol.
She spoke of the lack of oxygen in the bunkers and the fear that held the breath of those gathered there that they might lose their lives.
Natalia is among dozens of civilians evacuated from the factory in Mariupol, a port city that Russian forces have besieged for weeks and reduced to rubble.
During the bus trip, she said, she joked with her husband, who was part of a convoy that had reached an agreement with the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, telling him that they no longer needed to go to the bathroom by flashlight.
“You can’t imagine what we went through – it’s a heart-stopping horror,” Natalia said.
“I lived there (in Mariupol) and worked all my life, but what we saw there (in the factory) was horrific,” she added.
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