Haltern, Germany--A sea of lit candles and flowers covered the front steps of a German school deep in mourning Wednesday after 16 of its students died in a plane disaster in the French Alps.
Bereaved pupils wept and hugged near the makeshift memorial of candles, some arranged in heart shapes, to share the pain of losing their friends in Tuesday's tragedy.
"Yesterday we were many, today we are alone," read a hand-painted sign at the school, decorated with 16 crosses -- one for each of the victims, most of whom were around 15 years old.
The teenagers, 14 girls and two boys, were among at least 72 Germans who made up nearly half the disaster's total death toll of 150.
The students and their two female teachers had been on a week-long exchange trip near Barcelona, paying a reciprocal visit after Spanish youngsters came in December to the northwestern town of Haltern.
Compounding the tragedy, it emerged that those killed had won the trip in a lottery of their classmates, reported local daily the Halterner Zeitung in its online edition.
"Life dreams were shattered from one minute to the next," an ashen-faced headmaster Ulrich Wessel said during a televised press conference.
He said the students' deaths left "a wound that will heal very slowly and leave deep scars".
Across Germany flags are to fly at half-mast for three days to mourn the victims.
Condolence books were opened in Haltern's town hall, Berlin's Protestant Cathedral and at Duesseldorf airport, where the doomed jet had been due to land.
Staff of Lufthansa and its subsidiary Germanwings worldwide observed a minute's silence, many weeping quietly, at 0953 GMT, the moment radio contact broke off with the jet on Tuesday.
At the same time on Thursday, all schools in Haltern's state of North-Rhine Westphalia are set to follow suit with a minute's silence.
AFP
