By Max Hunder

KHARKIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -Russian airstrikes killed at least five people and injured 16 others in a recreation area just outside Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv on Sunday, local officials said.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov gave the toll of dead and wounded.

“The explosions heard in Kharkiv around noon occurred in a nearby suburb. Two Russian missiles hit a recreation centre where people were relaxing, killing five people and injuring sixteen others,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters correspondents saw a recreation area destroyed after what rescuers at the scene said was a powerful blast, followed by a second, “double tap” strike about 15-20 minutes later.

A man’s corpse lay under the rubble of what just over an hour previously was a busy lakeside restaurant area on a sunny day. A woman stumbled around in shock looking for her handbag in the wreckage.

Valentyna, a 69-year-old woman who lived opposite the resort, was at home when the explosion hit. Blood ran down the side of her face as she cried, saying husband had been killed in the blast.

He had been by the water, she said, gesturing to the area where there was now a crater by the shore, rubble, and corpses.

“To lose my husband, to lose my house, to lose everything in the world, it hurts, it hurts me,” she shouted through tears.

“They (the Russians) are animals, why do they need to kill people,” she yelled.

In recent weeks, Kharkiv city and the region of the same name have been under constant attack by Russian missiles and guided bombs as Russian troops have launched an offensive in the northeast of the region.

“There were never any soldiers here… it was a Sunday, people were supposed to be here to rest, children were supposed to he here, pregnant women, resting, enjoying a normal way of life,” said Yaroslav Trofimko, a police inspector with the local police department.

He arrived on the scene after the first blast, and was there when the second strike hit the same scene around 20 minutes later.

Ukraine has frequently accused Russia of using “double tap” strikes to kill or injure emergency workers at the scene of strike impacts.

(Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in KyivEditing by David Goodman and Frances Kerry)