“This is what hell looks like”: journalist recounts how train passengers hid from “Shaheds” under freight cars for two hours

“This is what hell looks like”: journalist recounts how train passengers hid from “Shaheds” under freight cars for two hours

Another night in Ukraine turned into a real nightmare for train passengers, who had to be emergently stopped in the central part of the country due to a massive «Shaheds» attack.

Journalist Tetyana Zayets, who became an involuntary witness to these events, shared on Facebook about what happened, describing it as hell on earth. According to her, the evacuation began suddenly: the conductor woke up the sleeping passengers with a short command to leave the cars, allowing them to take only the most essential items. In the darkness, under a downpour, hundreds of people stood on the tracks, wrapped in blankets from the railway workers, waiting either for the end or the all-clear signal.

What happened after the stop, the journalist compared to a real-life horror movie. When a swarm of Iranian drones whistled overhead, in panic the passengers decided to hide under freight cars on the neighboring tracks.

«We hid from the "Shaheds" under the cars. Now I know what it’s like when a swarm flies by. That’s what hell looks like. When the "Shaheds" buzzed, we crawled under the freight train», — shared Tetyana with horrific details.

The situation was worsened by the presence of a car with children returning from treatment: sleepy and frightened kids cried, not understanding why instead of cozy beds they had to lie in the dirt under the train’s wheels.

The battle with the «Shaheds» in the open terrain lasted two long hours. Passengers huddled in groups on the rails while the sky was torn by the hum of drones. Eventually, the all-clear was announced, and the train continued on, but the stress was forever etched in the memory of all eyewitnesses.

The journalist noted that in such moments, the line between peaceful life and the threat of death blurs, turning an ordinary trip into a desperate struggle for survival.

Tetyana’s post sparked a wave of outrage on social media, but not against the aggressor, but against the evacuation itself. Users rightly pointed out that hiding under cars — especially freight ones — is extremely dangerous: if the train moves or something explodes nearby, there’s no chance of survival under the multi-ton mass.

Here are readers’ comments:

• "As a former railway worker, I’ll say: never crawl under a car! I won’t go into details about the train’s braking system, but it’s deadly dangerous";
• "Hiding from "Shaheds" under cars, especially freight ones, — means becoming their perfect target";
• "Where is the safety from "UZ"? In the rain, at night, with them flying overhead";
• "No one will convince me that saving yourself in a field from explosions is normal. This is absurd. In Ukraine, there’s nowhere safe: not on the street, not at home, not in the field, not on the train, and such an evacuation is just a formality from the carrier".

However, in the night forests under the hum of the «swarm» overhead, people are guided only by the instinct to «burrow as far as possible», which once again underscores the complete vulnerability of citizens to Russian terror.