SPAIN: Towns and villages across Spain came to a standstill for a five-minute silence at noon yesterday in memory of the 41 people who died in Monday's underground train crash in Valencia.
Later, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia attended a funeral Mass in Valencia cathedral, at which they were joined by prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who had cut short a visit to India to fly back for the service.
Eleven people meanwhile were still in hospital yesterday, four of them in a critical condition, 24 hours after the accident.
There were harrowing scenes as worried relatives arrived at hospitals looking for missing friends and relatives who they believed were travelling on the train. Some were taken to the morgue, where they had to identify bodies either visually or through DNA testing.
A team of social workers was on hand to offer counselling. One psychologist said it brought back memories to him of the scenes he witnessed in Madrid when working with relatives of victims of the March 2004 train bombings.
All the dead, except one woman, have been named and released for burial.
One of the scenes of greatest emotion was in the small town of Torrent at the end of metro line 1. Eighteen of its 70,000 inhabitants died in the crash, many of them women and children travelling into the city for the sales.
One of the first tasks of the authorities was to remove the wreckage from the tunnel.
In spite of working throughout the night they were forced to drill into the tunnel from above to reach the tangled metal. They recovered the "black box", which has shown that the train was travelling at over 80km/h - twice the permitted speed - as it rounded the curve into the station.
Inspectors have found that there was no structural damage on the line and say that the wheels were intact.
Contrary to earlier reports, the driver was one of the fatalities. Joaquin Pardo (30) had worked for the Metro company for five years, but had been promoted to driver only this year.
It is unclear why he accelerated on this stretch of line and officials are investigating to see whether he was taken ill.
Another casualty of the accident is the Fifth World Meeting of Families, which was due to be held in Valencia at the weekend.
The organisers have announced the cancellation of all festivities, although Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the city on Saturday will go ahead as planned.