The flight was bringing holidaymakers back to Russia’s second largest city Saint Petersburg when it went down in Egypt’s Sinai, with international experts now at the scene trying to discover the cause of the tragedy.
“Can you imagine, people came (here) to pick up their children, grandchildren, only to find out that they no longer exist,” said Galina Grigoryeva, 34, one of many people who brought flowers to a makeshift memorial near the arrivals area at Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport.
“When I found out about this, I just cried,” she told AFP, her five-year-old in tow with a cuddly toy for the memorial to honour the children who died, some as young as 10 months.
Flags were at half mast on the parliament building, in the Kremlin, and on other official buildings in honour of the victims, most of whom were from Saint Petersburg and its surrounding region.
Authorities set up a crisis centre at a hotel near the airport where relatives of the victims were invited to provide DNA samples and psychologists were on call.
Russia’s state-owned rolling news channel Rossiya 24 periodically interrupted coverage with moments of silence and flashed photos of smiling crash victims apparently taken on their holiday and posted on social networks.
Some people had been on their first foreign holiday, some had never flown before, and one couple was on their honeymoon, the channel said.
“Many of us could have been on this plane, and this tragedy cannot leave any of us indifferent,” Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church said as he led one of religious services held Sunday in the victims’ memory.
– ‘Fit to fly’ –
Russian investigators searched the offices of Kogalymavia airline and the country’s transportation watchdog said it will continue checking it until November 30.
The charter carrier was still operating services Sunday.
Kogalymavia said Saturday that the pilot flying the Airbus 321 was very experienced, while authorities at the last fuel stop said there had not been any red flags.
“The plane did not undergo a technical check in Samara (in southeastern Russia), but the crew went through a health check and it was found fit to fly,” said a regional transport prosecutor’s office representative Maya Ivanova.
“There was a probe of the plane’s fuel and the quality of fuel at that time and it met all of the requirements,” she said in televised remarks.
Many entertainment venues in Moscow cancelled their programmes, and companies planning Halloween events overnight had dropped the festivities. Media organisations turned their social network icons monochrome as a mark of respect.
President Vladimir Putin, whose office announced a day of national mourning, was however absent from the screens, and some Russians criticised him for failing to speak to the nation about the tragedy.
The plane also had four Ukrainians and one Belarussian national on board, according to Russian officials.
“It is tragic when people die. It is twice as painful when compatriots die,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin wrote on Twitter, listing the four Ukrainian names.
In the Ukrainian capital Kiev, people piled flowers outside Moscow’s embassy in a gesture of moral support for Russians despite political tensions between the countries over the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.
“Grief has no nationality,” one Kiev native, 32-year-old Lyudmila, said at the scene. “The most important thing is to stay a human being and not lose compassion.” the vanguard.
