DONETSK, August 22./ITAR-TASS/. Two children aged 8 and 9 were killed when a multi-storey apartment house was hit in an night shelling of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, eyewitnesses have told ITAR-TASS.

They also said a power plant had been damaged in the city, leaving central districts of Donetsk without electricity. Local residents were evacuated amid fears that 20 tons of oil could leak from transformers and ignite. Electricity supply was partially restored at 10 am, Moscow time.

A kindergarten and some apartment houses were damaged as heavy artillery weapons fired towards the city in the early hours of Friday, and a railway station came under fire.

According to local militia, more than 1,129 people, including 348 women and 76 children have been killed in combat operations in the Donetsk region over the past two months.

Kiev’s military operation designed to regain control over the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums and now call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics, was launched in mid-April and has involved armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation.