The sobbing of people whose loved ones will not be coming home yesterday rose above the din of announcements of flight departures and arrivals at Geneva's airport.
It was the worst-case scenario for relatives of the passengers and crew of the ill-fated Swissair Flight 111, en route to Geneva from New York when it crashed into Canadian waters on Wednesday night.
For more than 100 family members of the victims, the business lounge where normally bankers quietly sip their coffee and read newspapers turned into a scene of despair.
Swissair Flight 111 was marked "delayed" on the arrivals board. But anticipation quickly turned into agony.
"We do not expect any survivors. We share your grief. You must be strong," Mr Jean-Claude Ducrot, chief of police at Geneva's Cointrin airport, told the families to bursts of weeping before he slowly read out the passenger list, with names from 14 nations.
"He was there, oh my God, he was there," wept an elderly father, hearing his son's name read out from the list of 229 people including two babies, aboard the crashed aircraft.
Nurses and psychologists tried to comfort people.
"It's an atmosphere of meditation. There are a lot of people to give support to," said Mr Mendel Pevzner, a rabbi who went to the crisis centre which was quickly set up by airport officials.
Clergymen from other religious dominations and officers of the Salvation Army were also on hand.
The US ambassador to Switzerland, Ms Madeleine Kunin, also rushed to Cointrin airport from the capital Berne, where the Swiss government set up a group to look into the disaster.
For Ms Catherine Calvet-Mazy (36) a French staff member of the UN refugee agency UNHCR who left behind her 15-month-old baby daughter and her husband, it was the hand of fate. She had changed her flight at the last minute in New York. It was the same for UNHCR's co-ordinator in the troubled Great Lakes region of central Africa, Mr Pierce Garety, who was changed from another flight and was seated on the crashed Swissair jetliner at the last minute.
But a staff member of the Romebased Food and Agriculture Organisation, who was on an initial UN list of crash victims, changed his flight plans at the last minute. The UN spokesman, Mr Fred Eckhard, said that the FAO staff member "was on a preliminary list of victims.
"We later learned that at the last minute, he changed his flight plans," Mr Eckhard said. He did not have further details.
The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, expressed deep sadness yesterday at the loss of life in the disaster. "Their loss is felt not only personally but professionally as well," said Mr Annan, now in Durban, South Africa, for a summit meeting of the non-aligned movement.
The US Vice President, Mr Al Gore, also expressed grief at the crash yesterday. "I know I speak for all Americans when I say that our hearts are heavy with the news of this loss," Mr Gore said in a statement.
The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, expressed his sympathy to the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, during their visit to Northern Ireland. "I wish to express our heartfelt sympathy to you as President of the United States in respect to any of your citizens who lost their life in the tragedy," he said.
Mr Clinton thanked Mr Blair and said he joined in the prayers for the families of those who died in the crash.
"I thank Prime Minister Blair and I echo his words about thoughts and prayers we have for the victims' family," he said.
"We are deeply grieved."