NEWTOWN: Mourners in Newtown, Connecticut, stood in silence under heavy rain while church bells rang to honour the 20 young children and six staff massacred in a school shooting a week ago.
The sombre scene at 9:30 am local time, the moment a week earlier when a deranged local man armed with semiautomatic weapons burst into the Sandy Hook Elementary School, was echoed around the country in an unofficial national day of mourning.
President Barack Obama observed the moment of silence at the White House and he tweeted: "20 beautiful children & 6 remarkable adults. Together, we will carry on & make our country worthy of their memory."
Connecticut State Governor Dannel Malloy had been the first to call on residents to stop and reflect in silence at the exact minute that 20-year-old Adam Lanza began his slaughter of the six- and seven-year-old children and their school staff.
"Let us all come together collectively to mourn the loss of far too many promising lives," Malloy said. "Though we will never know the full measure of sorrow experienced by these families, we can let them know that we stand with them during this difficult time."
Malloy asked for churches and government buildings to ring bells 26 times, symbolizing each of the victims in the school.
In Newton, bells rang as people on the street stood in a cold, driving rain.
Outside the fire station near the school, which remains closed off by police, a woman brushed tears and raindrops away from a man's face. Some stood stoically, heads bowed, while others sobbed.
Several firemen emerged from the station in full bunker gear and hugged the mourners. The rain was so hard that from the impromptu memorial, the sound of church bells couldn't even be heard, while wind and water had knocked down several Christmas trees erected to remember the dead children.
And the people of Newtown were far from alone.
Malloy's appeal was quickly matched by state governors from Hawaii to Florida, who called on residents to observe their own moment of silence in solidarity.
Houses of worship around the country also embraced the week's anniversary.
The National Council of Churches said that thousands of churches would "observe a minute of silence and at 9:30 am Friday sound their bells 26 times in memory of the victims who died in the school."
On the crowd-sourced charity site, causes.com, almost 177,000 people had signed up by early Friday to pledge a moment's silence.
The first lady, Michelle Obama, wrote to the people of Newtown that "as a mother of two young daughters, my heart aches for you and your families."
However, "the countless acts of courage, kindness and love here in Newtown and across America" had inspired her to believe the country had shown its good side in the aftermath of the massacre, she said.
- AFP/jc
Moments of silence, bells mark US school shooting
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Moments of silence, bells mark US school shooting
