If the aftermath on Saturday resembled a battlefield, with the screams of the wounded and dying piercing the thick, choking dust, then yesterday in Omagh there was only the silence of the tomb.
In the leisure centre, where relatives waited red-eyed and despairing, the leaden quiet was broken only by choking sobs as the death of another mother, father, son or daughter was finally confirmed and a family's life darkened forever.
Down at the bridge, where the once-bustling town centre lay broken and still, forensic teams sifted through the rubble in silence. At the point where an army cordon kept the media and public at bay, the tragically familiar pattern of the bereaved asserted itself as groups of young people clutching bunches of flowers and teddy bears, huddled together on their way to leave their tributes, in silence.
Nearby, the massed ranks of the world's media kept a quiet, sombre vigil in the drizzle, some counselling colleagues overwhelmed by emotion, by the lack of sleep, by the lack of answers. In the churches, unable to articulate their feelings or despairing of the futility of anything they might say, Catholic priests simply prayed for those affected and asked for silence to reflect on what had befallen their town.
In St Columba's Church of Ireland parish church, the curate, Ruth Adams (25), asked for "a time of silence and prayer, thinking of all those affected - and ourselves, asking for God's mercy on Omagh".
The telephones were silent, the lines scrambled by the explosion. The bombers kept their silence too. In this neat, middle-class, market town reckoned to be 60 per cent nationalist, where cross-community relations have always been healthy and normal, the questions mounted and scorched themselves into the psyches of the tortured souls who lived, shopped or worked in Omagh this weekend.
Why them? Why their children? Why this town?
"People are hardly fit to talk. This is our town. Look what they've done to it. Look what they've done to our town and to its people - all its people," said Dan Campbell (77) who, like many others, had passed the bomb site only minutes before the explosion. "And why? I don't know. Does anybody know? Do the bombers themselves know? Even with all the loss of life, what do they think that bomb is going to do for them?"
At 8.30 a.m. Mass inside the packed St Joseph's Hall - in use while the Sacred Heart church undergoes renovation - the parish priest, Father Michael Keaveny, said grimly this was no religious war. "The people doing this are not the slightest bit interested in religion. The war is over." He gripped the hand of a man who had lost his daughter-in-law.
Nearby, at St Columba's, Ruth Adams struggled with exhaustion and a sense of futility. "No, you can't get comfort from tragedy, I think. We can just try to comfort each other."
Afterwards, in her homily, she summed up the feelings of her congregation. "This morning, the gospel was about peace, a peace we have heard and read about in our scripture, a peace we long for in our hearts, a peace that is a reality for us in this place; a peace that is not a reality in this town this day. But over the last day, I have seen great love, a love that comes from God has been shown by the people of Omagh, love to each other and to the suffering."
This Sunday morning, she said, there were 25 messages on her answering machine, of concern and love from churches around the North and around the world.
The church warden, Dr Maureen Andrew, climbed to the podium to ask for support for their curate in helping the families of the injured and bereaved. In a voice breaking with emotion, she described being in a house at 2.15 a.m. yesterday morning where she saw a photograph of "a beautiful young girl, not yet 21 years old. That girl's parents would be viewing her body this morning".
Outside, the savagery and scale of the bombing was still only making itself apparent. By midday, only six or seven bodies had been formally identified. With telephone lines down and the lists of injured and missing changing by the minute, rumour and counter-rumour quickened and died.
There were miracles of a kind. Trevor Kane talked of two old friends - shopkeepers - walking into his vision when he had given them up for dead, but miracles were rare.
At the leisure centre, where relatives waited in the cruel media glare for news of loved ones, the aftermath of an identification was terrible to witness. A grey-haired man made his way through the crowd, sobbing helplessly into a handkerchief, having just heard that his 17-year-old daughter was among the dead.
A man whose daughter was in Altnagelvin with severe head injuries had just left to tell his two remaining children that their mother was dead. A mother and father were coming to terms with the death of one teenage daughter and another who had an arm blown away.
Councillor Paddy McGowan saw a Donegal father being told that his 12-year old son's body was in the morgue. A fireman who received the MBE in recognition of his actions at the scene of the Ballygawley Road bombing where 10 soldiers were killed 10 years ago, Mr McGowan seemed numbed.
As the bomb exploded on Saturday, he told how he abandoned his car and rushed to the scene. "I never saw anything like the injuries. There were bodies that certainly couldn't be identified - maybe will never be identified and some of them were so small . . . well, you'd know they were children."
More than 200 children were in town to participate in the great parade on Saturday, the culmination of the week-long cross-community festival, the town's first festival in 12 years. There were stilt-walkers, clowns, Teletubbies and bands - and five children's floats which were scheduled to pass the area within eight minutes of the explosion, according to Gerry McCusker, a community group representative in the town.
"We actually changed the starting point only last Wednesday, it was only within 200 yards of it. There would have been thousands lining the streets waiting for the floats. One of our floats was only 500 yards away when it happened. It should have been a day of dancing, singing and barbecues, something we'd been planning for three years. Instead we'll be having a meeting tonight to see what we're going to do . . . I think that it has heightened tensions already," he finished, his voice trembling.
Across the table, the festival committee chairman, Kieran Gallagher, had tears standing in his eyes. "I firmly believe that bomb was planted to kill - not to blow up buildings or to murder members of the security forces - but was planted to kill children on our floats. To call those people vermin would only insult vermin."
As Mr McCusker finally broke down weeping, Kieran Gallagher explained that they had to tell the children that something had happened. "We had to tell them that there are an awful lot of bad people who don't think like us or them - and these children can't speak for themselves."
All around, there were stories of children losing their hearing or legs or arms or suffering terrible head injuries. He himself had just left the morgue after viewing the body of a man he went to school with.
Nor was it just people from Omagh. Spanish students were among the injured and children on tours to the folk centre in the town. Some were struck as they argued about buying a pencil case or the length of a school uniform. They were only shopping or chatting or out for a fun day in town.
Two Protestants said they had dealt with their despair by demonstrating to their Catholic neighbours that even a 500 lb would not destroy their friendship. They went to their local Catholic Mass and walked up to receive Communion.
Another Protestant woman, Heather Wilson, had a friend who said she was ashamed to be a Catholic "but I had said the same to her when the Quinn boys were murdered . . . Many of my friends are Catholic and that certainly will not change".
But others stood on the bridge overlooking the devastated town and spewed out bitterness: "What do ye expect when ye have terrorists running the country? Ye pretend ye're doing something about the bombers down there but I know ye're doing nothing."
His friend demurred: "Ah, now, I think it is the splinter groups. I think it is and they're very hard to control," he said slowly, "but I could be wrong now."