Grieving Chapeco receives bodies of plane-crash victims

CHAPECO (BRAZIL), December 3

Brazil’s president bestowed honours on the victims of an air crash as Air Force troops unloaded 50 coffins flown in overnight from Colombia, site of the disaster this week that killed 71 people and wiped out a rural soccer team.

The Brazilian town of Chapeco, its streets wet with rain and buildings draped in the green of its devastated club, turned out to receive the bodies and attend a wake at a local stadium for members of the team, which ascended from minor leagues in recent years to reach the championship of a South American tournament.

Bolivian President Evo Morales pledged to take “drastic measures” to determine what caused the crash. Bolivia has suspended LAMIA’s operating license and replaced the national aviation authority’s management. In Chapeco, a small agricultural town in southern Brazil, dozens of fans kept vigil overnight in a drizzle at Chapecoense’s stadium, where the wake will be held after the caskets are transported from a nearby airfield. By dawn fans were lined up around the block and began streaming into the stadium, draped with banners and the team’s green and white, when doors opened shortly thereafter.

An impromptu shrine swelled with fresh flowers and handmade posters and fans from other parts of Brazil joined the locals, waving flags of other teams in solidarity. Some supporters, even as organizers piped somber classical music over loudspeakers, sang raucous soccer chants.

Fans said the wake would provide closure for a town whose excitement at Wednesday night’s cup final had turned to anguish. Some 100,000 fans, about half the city’s population, were expected to attend, as was Gianni Infantino, president of world soccer governing body FIFA. — Reuters