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Germanwings flight 4U9525 crash: German town mourns 16 teens killed in crash

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A German town mourned 16 teenagers who were among the 150 people killed in a plane crash in the French Alps

Tuesday as they returned from a school exchange in Spain. Fellow students shed tears,

laid flowers and lit candles outside the high school that the mostly 15-year-old victims and their two teachers came from.

"This is certainly the darkest day in the history of our city," said Mr Bodo Klimpel, the mayor of Haltern am See,

the students' hometown 70km north of Duesseldorf, the doomed flight's destination.

"The city is deeply saddened ... Everyone is in a state of shock. It is the worst thing you can imagine,

" he said, holding back tears in a press conference. The 10th-grade students and their two female teachers

 had been on a week-long exchange trip in Llinars del Valles near Barcelona,

paying a reciprocal visit after Spanish students came to Haltern in December.

The students' names were on the passenger manifest of the crashed Germanwings flight, said Mr Klimpel,

 meaning that "we have to assume the worst". "It's so tragic, so sad, so unfathomable,

" said Ms Sylvia Loehrmann, education minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

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 R.I.P. Condolences to their families.