A day after the joyous celebration of a religious festival, mass funerals were held in the small Ethiopian town of Arerti for the 36 people killed when scaffolding inside an Orthodox Christian church collapsed.
Hundreds of mourners walked with coffins draped in colourful cloth into the compound of a nearby church while clerics conducted burial rituals following the disaster at the St Mariam Church.
Among them was 22-year-old Fikre Tilahun, who told the BBC that he had lost his mother in the tragedy.
It's difficult to lose your mother, very difficult, he said.
Although the church is still under construction, people had gathered in the building on Wednesday during the annual Orthodox Christian celebration of St Mariam.
Eyewitness Gebreweld Tesfaye explained that many worshippers decided to climb onto the makeshift scaffolding to view a newly painted mural on the church ceiling when disaster struck.
The staircase was entirely wooden, and there were many people moving upstairs at the time. As the congregants were going, the wooden structure gave way, leading to the collapse, Mr Gebreweld said.
Other eyewitnesses reported chaos, as people scattered in panic or tried to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble.
Mr Fikre recounted his frantic search for his mother after the disaster; he was devastated to find her body at the hospital later.
The archbishop of the local diocese, Megabi Hadis Nekatibeb, described the disaster as incredibly tragic and heart-breaking. He stated that the government expressed its condolences to the relatives of the victims and emphasized that safety must be given priority during all construction projects.
The incident highlights the ongoing issues with health and safety regulations in Ethiopia, where construction disasters remain tragically common.
