A day after the joyous celebration of a religious festival, an Orthodox Christian church in the small Ethiopian town of Arerti was holding mass funerals for the 36 worshippers killed when scaffolding inside the building collapsed.
Hundreds of mourners walked with coffins draped in colourful cloth into the compound of the Arerti Mariam church while clerics conducted burial rituals.
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.
Worshippers had gathered at the church, about 70 km (45 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, on Wednesday as part of the annual Orthodox Christian celebration of St Mary.
Eyewitness Gebreweld Tesfaye told the BBC that a sizeable number of 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 described chaos as people scattered in panic to save lives of those trapped beneath the rubble.
Mr. Fikre recalled rushing to the church and then to a health center, hoping to find his mother but learned of her fate at a hospital.
She was among the 36 dead, with emergency services warning that the death toll could rise, as some of the approximately 200 injured remain in critical condition. The archbishop of the local diocese described the disaster as incredibly tragic and heart-breaking.
The Ethiopian government expressed its condolences and emphasized the need for prioritizing safety in construction. Poor enforcement of health and safety regulations in the country has led to such tragedies becoming all too common.
