Three European leaders stood in a pasture in the Alpes de Haute Provence on Wednesday, united by grief. Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel and Mariano Rajoy were dressed in black, and their afflicted expressions appeared genuine.
They had reached the nearest accessible point to the crash of Germanwings flight 9525, just a couple of kilometres as the crow flies from the wreckage and remains of 150 bodies.
Though they were surrounded by dozens of officials, the leaders seemed dwarfed by nature as they grappled with human tragedy.
They stared at the two mountains before them, one screening the other – and the plane crash – from view. The dark, pyramid-like peak in the foreground is called “la montagne des bêtes” because cattle move up its steep flanks to graze in summer. Behind it rises the snow-capped range of the Three Archbishoprics.
"If they were conscious at the time of the crash, those beautiful, snow-capped mountains are the last thing they would have seen," said Francois Balique, the mayor of Le Vernet.
Icy clouds crept down the mountainsides, obscuring the highest peaks, veiling the valley of death from helicopter crews. Xavier Roy, a rescue pilot and co-ordinator of air operations at nearby Seyne-les-Alpes, said no bodies would be transported on Wednesday. The priority was to locate all remains, and mark them with little flags. Forensic experts must issue a death certificate for each body before it is moved.
So Wednesday’s ceremonies at Le Vernet and Seyne-les-Alpes were like funerals without bodies or principal mourners. The eight villages of the canton, total population less than 3,000, have brought in psychologists, interpeters and flowers in preparation for the arrival of the crash victims’ families. None had been seen by late on Wednesday.
Mr Hollande, Mrs Merkel and Mr Rajoy spoke to hundreds of journalists in a warehouse next to a glider club that has been transformed into a helicopter base. "I promise you that everything will be done to find, identify and return the remains to the families," said Mr Hollande. "France has committed very substantial means to learning the causes of this catastrophe. Alas, we have a certain expertise . . . Dear Angela, dear Mariano, you can be certain that all will be known."
Mrs Merkel and Mr Rajoy hugged Mr Hollande. "This solidarity is the solidarity of Europe, " said Mr Hollande, "of Europe tested when there is a catastrophe of such magnitude, but of a Europe that is ardent and present".
Wearing a fluorescent orange rescue pilot’s jumpsuit, Xavier Roy briefed journalists on the helicopter base. The number of rescue workers had diminished slightly “because the rescue phase is over,” said Mr Roy. “We’re in a phase of search and investigation.”
Flight recorders
Finding the aircraft’s second “black box” was also a priority, Mr Roy continued. The French investigation and analysis bureau BEA announced that it has extracted an audible voice recording of exchanges between the pilot and co-pilot from the flight recorder discovered on Tuesday. The second, which contains technical data regarding engines and cabin pressure, is still missing.
Brice Robin, the prosecutor from Marseilles, announced that he has assigned 14 magistrates to conduct a formal investigation into involuntary manslaughter in connection with the crash.
The site is nearly vertical, Mr Roy explained, with inclines of up to 70 degrees. “We are using pitons and ropes, like mountain climbers.”
Bodies will be lifted by rope into helicopters, but authorities are trying to establish a ground path to the site to remove debris.
The presence of so many children on the aircraft takes a toll on rescue workers, said Mr Roy. “As long as you’re active, you tend to put it aside,” he said. “It’s afterwards that it hits you.”
The hamlet of Le Vernet is literally too small to deal with the catastrophe. With 130 inhabitants, its population are fewer than those who died on the plane. “We don’t have any place big enough to put 150 coffins,” said mayor Balique, a Paris lawyer who commutes to his home village. Consequently, the bodies will be taken to a gymnasium in Seyne-les-Alpes.
“We are mountain people. We know what solidarity is,” Mr Balique continued. “What happens to one individual happens to us all. We share the pain of the families, because it happened in our town. We assume this responsibility.”
The villagers of Vernet have prepared a room in a former tourist complex, with a large plate glass window looking directly on to the mountains concealing the crash site, to receive the victims’ families. It is now equipped with folding chairs, a gas heater, sprays of flowers and candles and will be preserved as a place of mourning and meditation for the foreseeble future, said Mr Balique. He expects family members and friends of the victims to continue to visit for some time.
The mayor promised Mr Hollande, Mrs Merkel and Mr Rajoy that the village will also erect a stele bearing the names of the victims. He intends to clear a path to the narrow valley, which was until now was known only to a few shepherds and hunters.
“For us, there will be a before and an after,” said Mr Balique. “It will take years for life to return to normal here. We will live with the collective memories of these victims. They died here, so we will live with them. We will think about them.”
The one-room École Pierre Magnan, named after a local novelist, stands beside the former hotel complex where the mourning room was in preparation. Nine children from Le Vernet played outside, their laughter, a gurgling stream and birdsong belying the horror beyond the mountain.
“There were babies in the plane,” Maxim, age 7½, volunteered. “I heard it on the television.”
“We’re not traumatised,” insisted Nicolas, a boy of 10 with ginger hair. “This year there’s been Charlie Hebdo, the athletes in the helicopter crash in Argentina and an avalanche [that killed a local man]. We’re used to death here.”
