The early morning explosion that woke Oksana Alfiorova from her sleep seemed normal enough, at least for wartime Kherson. But even for Kherson, she soon realized Tuesday morning, things were far from normal. A dam had been destroyed, and soon the power went out, the gas stopped working and the water supply to her apartment stopped flowing. So Ms. Alfiorova did something she had long resisted despite all the hardships of the past year and a half: She fled. She boarded an evacuation train from Kherson to Mykolaiv, about 40 miles to the west, stepping out onto Platform 1, homeless for the first time in her life.

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Persons: Oksana Alfiorova, Alfiorova, — Locations: Kherson, Dnipro, Mykolaiv