The Brazilian town of Chapeco, its streets wet with drizzle and buildings draped in the green of its devastated soccer club, prepared Saturday to receive the bodies of victims of an air crash in Colombia that killed 71 people and wiped out the team.
Monday's disaster shocked soccer fans the world over and plunged Brazil, South America's biggest nation, into mourning. The BAe146 regional airliner operated by Bolivian charter company Lamia had radioed that it was running out of fuel before smashing into a hillside outside the Colombian city of Medellin.
Only six people survived, including just three members of the soccer side Chapecoense en route to the Copa Sudamericana final, the biggest game in its history.