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Tears at festival crush tribute
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Thousands of mourners have watched in tears as German rescue workers lit one white candle for each of the 21 people crushed to death in a tunnel at the Love Parade techno music festival.
Around 500 people attended the mourning ceremony at Salvator church in the western city of Duisburg - the scene of the tragedy a week ago - and many times more watched the event on screens in the city's football stadium and a dozen other churches.
Several TV stations carried the service live, and flags across the country flew at half-mast.
"The Love Parade was danced to death," Nikolaus Schneider, the head of the Rhineland Lutheran church assembly, said in his opening sermon, following sombre organ music and prayers for the deceased. "In the middle of a celebration of lust for life, death showed its ugly face to all of us."
The 21 people who died were aged 18 to 38 and included foreigners from Spain, Australia, Italy, Bosnia, China and Holland. Another 500 people were injured, and 25 of them are still in hospital.
Among those at Salvator church were German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Christian Wulff, family members of the victims and many relief workers who had helped rescue the injured.
In the afternoon, a few hundred mourners marched from the city's train station to the direction of the tunnel. They were holding white balloons, but were not allowed to enter the tunnel, which had been blocked by police for security reasons.
Franz-Josef Overbeck, the Roman Catholic bishop of the neighbouring city of Essen, said: "Life can be so oppositional: One moment there is a party, the next moment we are lying helplessly on the ground. We want to stir our life in secure ways, but don't have it under control."
The ceremony was led by the two Roman Catholic and Lutheran Protestant clerics - representing Germany's two main denominations. Several rescue workers also spoke, as well as the governor of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia - where Duisburg is located.
