Rescuers rush to save people buried in rubble of a building destroyed by a Russian missile.

Residents of the city had turned out in numbers to help remove burned out cars and debris from in front of the building to clear the path for fire trucks and rescuers to come in and raise their ladders.

At one point, an order was given for all vehicle engines to be turned off so the rescuers could listen for the sounds of people trapped under the rubble.

Rescuers on cranes were being guided by the mobile phones and flashlights of those trapped, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said in a Telegram post. He shared a photo of a person holding a light in the window of a damaged upper story, where the whole face of the building had been shorn off.

Before issuing his nightly address, Mr. Zelensky had called the strike “evil” and posted an image of the rescue operation.

“We are fighting for every person, every life,” he said in a Telegram post.

The United Nations resident coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, called the images coming out of Dnipro “horrifying.”

“Dozens of civilians, including children, killed or injured while in their homes,” she wrote on Twitter, adding: “Intentional attacks against civilians is a war crime.”