Spain decrees three days of mourning for victims of Germanwings crash

Spain decreed three days of mourning for victims of yesterday's plane crash, in what may be the nation's worst loss of life in a single incident in nearly two years.

The government in Madrid was working with Germanwings to determine the Spanish death toll from the downed plane, deputy prime minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said.

The plane, which left from Barcelona-El Prat airport, was carrying as many as 45 people with Spanish names on board, Ms de Santamaria said, without confirming that they were citizens of the country.

"We will do everything in our power to help the families of the victims," Spain's prime minister,, Mariano Rajoy, said on Twitter. "We are with them." He is to travel to the crash site today.

The crash may be the worst loss of life among Spaniards since a rail crash in northwest Spain killed 79 people in July 2013. Both Mr Rajoy and Catalan president Artur Mas expressed their condolences to families and suspended their engagements to co-ordinate the response. King Felipe VI suspended a state visit to France.

Grief and shock

There were scenes of grief and shock in the Catalan town of

Llinars del Vallè

after families there learned that German students they had been hosting as part of an exchange programme had died in the crash.

For the past week, 14- and 15-year-olds from the town had shared their homes and lives with 16 teenagers from western Germany. They had become fast friends months earlier when the Catalan students travelled to the German town of Haltern for the first part of the exchange.

Yesterday, they faced the tough task of saying goodbye to their new friends.

Accompanied by their families, the German teenagers dropped their Spanish friends at the town’s train station, some 56km from Barcelona’s El Prat airport, exchanging hugs and promising to keep in touch.

Hours later, they sobbed as they were told that their friends were believed to be on the flight that had crashed in the French Alps.

In El Prat airport, Spanish airport authorities designated a special zone in Terminal 2 for the relatives and friends of those believed to be on the flight. People started arriving at noon and were quickly shuttled by Barcelona police to meet crisis specialists and psychologists. By mid-afternoon, the number of people who had come to the airport with concerns about their loved ones had reportedly swollen to more than 100.

In Llinars del Vallè, psychologists from the Red Cross have been brought in to help the students, said nayor Marti Pujol i Casals, as well as offer support to the many host parents who are grieving. “You have this child staying in your home, you take them on excursions to Barcelona and in the end you’ve looked after this child as if it were your own for the week – there’s a lot of pain in this community today.”

For now, his concerns lay with another group of German teenagers on exchange in the town, he said – this one made up of 35 students from Hamburg. "They're supposed to fly out tomorrow morning." – (Bloomberg, Guardian)