We could spare a thought for the innocent people on the ground who were bombarded with debris from the explosion...
โShe was only half a person but she was a woman, maybe in her 50s,โโ Ms Tipunova said. โBut she was here with us in the house. We know the situation of war and are so aware of bombs dropping and we thought it was a bomb. But it was worse. I know this is all part of war, but it is very sad.โ
The body was taken away, but not for a while, which added to Ms Tipunovaโs distress. Lime powder is now scattered on the floor where there were pools of blood, but the stench of death remains, as do blood-spattered pots and pans.
โTell everyone how it is truthfully, everyone must know,โ she says.
Everyone in the rural village has a similar story, some even worse than Ms Tipunovaโs.
But they also wanted to share their stories with The Australian.
No-one had spoken to them about their distress - not even the authorities - and they were pleased to share summer fruits and tales of horror, some just too graphic to print.
It was a quiet hamlet of little more than two dozen or so farm houses early last week, but by last Thursday it had become the village of the dead.
Thereโs Ms Tipunovaโs elderly neighbour, local farmer Sascha. He too had a passenger from the Malaysian Airlines flight drop through his roof.
Tatiana said it was โraining humansโ as she tended the fields and now canโt erase the scene from her mind. Nor can Liliya Alexandrovnr Kuhta, 43, who, along with her daughter, saw bodies and debris fall across the village. In all, 39 victims of the Boeing 777 flight landed in the village.
โEveryone here cried for two days,โโ Tatiana said. โCried and cried and cried, the crying was non-stop, how could you not? But then we knew what we had to do.
โWe lined up shoulder-to shoulder with the local coal pit workers and walked through into the fields of sun flowers to find these people. They deserved respect and we went to get them.โ
The coal pit workers also yesterday walked through large wheat belts looking for bodies.
Liliya pointed out where two bodies were immediately found in her village yesterday, then walked through the villageโs three roads, then continues pointing out to the left and then the right and then the roof of a home, then a barn, then a field.
โOver there was a nine-month old baby, just nine months,โ she said. โWhen the sun flowers fall, we will find more I know this. Itโs terrible, sad. Everyone here believed it was a Ukraine fighter jet that shot the airline down. Who knows. But Australia and these countries should come here, these people need a memorial. Tell them to build a memorial here.โ
