Wounded Ukrainian soldiers treated in hospital

(31 Jan 2017) Fighting between government troops and Russia-backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine has escalated, killing at least eight people late on Monday and early Tuesday, injuring dozens and briefly trapping more than 200 coal miners underground until they were released in the afternoon. The artillery shelling, which appears to be the worst in many months, was concentrated around Avdiivka, a government-controlled town on the northern outskirts of the separatist stronghold of Donetsk. Wounded Ukrainian soldiers were treated in Avdiivka hospital on Monday and transported to other cities by ambulances for further treatment. On Tuesday a shell landed near the hospital. The director of the town's giant coking plant said on Monday that preparations were being made to stop production, something rarely done throughout the conflict that has claimed more than 9,700 lives since it began in 2014. The Avdiivka coking plant has switched to natural gas supply after power was cut off on Tuesday. It is still providing some heating to homes in the town, director Musa Magomedov told The Associated Press, even though its gas reserves are running low. Salvos of heavy-calibrartillery were heard throughout the night and late morning in Avdiivka, where several thousand people have been without electricity for days. Fighting has cut water supplies for most of the town and it temperatures plunged to minus 18 Celsius (0 F) on Tuesday morning. Volodymyr Bassak, 67, was waiting for a bus on Tuesday morning to travel to the city of Kharkiv some 200 kilometres (125 miles) north after his home had been without heating for several days. A January ceasefire had until recently helped to limit the fighting to sporadic shoot-outs. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...