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Tetyana Trotsak spent two months in a bunker beneath the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol and has finally reached relative safety in Zaporizhzhia.

But she is unable to forget the 42 people she believes are still stuck in the shelter they shared, one of whom told her family: “Go ahead, get to Zaporizhzhia and grab a table at a cafe and… we’ll join you for a pizza.”

The 25-year-old was trapped in the bunker with her husband and parents, and said she is “terribly worried” about the civilians and wounded soldiers still there.

There were not enough spaces for everyone to evacuate and Ms Trotsak’s family had been chosen as her mother has asthma.

She described hearing sounds of fighting and explosions coming closer as they sheltered in the bunker.

“When the heavy shelling started and powerful strikes started landing near our shelter, we could feel the shaking just by sitting on the bed,” recalling how they have tried to find a way to light the pitch-black bunker after the attacks cut off power supplies.

She teared up when she told of how the family’s old dog, Jerry, had to be killed by a Ukrainian soldier because he was suffering in the shelter. The soldier had come back crying, she said.

When the family was finally able to evacuate, the walk to the waiting buses that should have taken 15 minutes ended up taking two and a half hours due to the huge amount of debris around the complex.