Chaos reigns in Georgian rebel city after battle

By Denis Sinyakov

TSKHINVALI, Georgia (Reuters) - Only the rumble of distant artillery fire punctured the silence enveloping Tskhinvali on Sunday, but residents in the main town in Georgia's rebel South Ossetia region wondered how long the relative calm would last.

Lined with rubble from buildings devastated in the fighting, the town remained on edge, its residents venturing out from cellars for the first time on Sunday following three days of ferocious fighting.

Many expressed shock as they picked their way through streets strewn with rubble and broken glass from wrecked building facades -- and with bodies still lying uncollected.

Some residents said scores remained buried under masses of concrete and metal.

"It's terrible. We don't know what's going on," one elderly woman told a Reuters reporter who entered the city with Russian troops. "I haven't seen anything like this in my whole life."

Thousands of civilians fled during the first hours of the battle and many apartment blocks, their walls pocked by bullet holes, appeared deserted. Repeated shelling felled dozens of trees.

With much of the local infrastructure in ruins, residents scrambled to find water and food while artillery fire rumbled unabated on the town's outskirts.

No one knew just who was doing the firing.

Violeta Kukoyeva, escorting an elderly relative, said she had spent the last three days hiding in an underground bunker.

"We had nothing to eat. We just had a bit of bread, a bit of water," she said.

Doctors at a local hospital transferred patients into a dimly-lit cellar after explosions blew large holes in the upper floors. They said they had neither medical supplies nor fresh water to treat 200 injured.

"We have nothing to feed them. We give the little bread we have to the elderly. They need it most," said doctor Valentina Kutukhova.

Moscow said 2,000 civilians had died and thousands were homeless in a "humanitarian catastrophe" in South Ossetia. The figures could not be independently verified.

Georgia offered a ceasefire and on Sunday said it had pulled troops back from the separatist capital. But the city remained gripped by rumors and locals said Georgian troops were still around the city. Some spoke of snipers hiding in the ruins.

A Reuters reporter saw bodies of six Georgian soldiers lying unattended in piles of rusting rubble near a burning armored personnel carrier. Gunfire resounded through the outskirts.