Some hid their eyes, some collapsed in tears as gruesome images of victims from Sri Lanka's Easter massacre were projected on to a screen in front of distraught relatives at a Colombo morgue on Monday.
The pictures of some of the 290 dead are disturbing, with faces battered and bodies missing limbs.
A Roman Catholic priest and a Buddhist counterpart waited in the corner of the courtyard to intervene when one of scores of people in the audience recognised a mother, brother or child.
Many of the dead from attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels have been taken to the government morgue and people queued in the heat to get into the heart-wrenching identification slideshow.
Eighteen bodies were released on Monday morning after relatives recognised a victim from the gruesome images shown in a corner of the morgue courtyard.
Identification is painstaking, physically and emotionally. Many badly mutilated bodies will only be identified with the DNA of relatives, officials said.
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Janaka Shaktivel, 28, father of an 18-month-old son, sat in shock outside the building waiting for the body of his wife to be handed over.
The storeowner's wife died when a suicide bomber hit St Anthony's Shrine, one of Colombo's most famous churches.
Pale and grief-stricken, Shaktivel said he remembered lighting candles with his wife and baby.
"My baby started crying, I took him outside and my wife stayed inside. I was just at the door when I heard an ear-splitting sound. I rushed inside but there were unbelievable scenes. I frantically looked for my wife but couldn't find her."
"I recognised her body from the wedding ring that she always wore," he said. "I have no words to explain my feelings."
"They are very poor people, we have to support them from the church," added the pastor. "The church is doing everything possible to help the families."