On Saturday morning, around 70 people gathered at the memorial site that the municipality has prepared. Many of them are young people who walk forward, lighting candles, leaving flowers, hugging each other and crying.
One of them is Frida Vallaste, who graduated from high school last year. She did not attend Brinell School herself, but had many friends there. Both she and her mother Mariett Vallaste, who lives nearby, are having a hard time coming to terms with what happened.
For about an hour and a half, they heard the constant wail of police sirens, saw blue lights and helicopters in the air.
Can't understand
It's completely unreal. We have older siblings who have been here, so you've walked these corridors, and have an idea of what was inside. It's impossible to understand, Mariett Vallaste tells TT.
The municipality has also arranged crisis support here for anyone who wants to talk, and a priest and police are also on site. Rescue leader Roger Ågren is on site and has also left flowers. He says that staff had crisis support calls on Friday evening, calls with “extremely strong emotions” that lasted three hours.
“I understand the feelings. We have summer temporary workers and staff who haven't worked for that long and have to deal with this,” he says, adding that the staff's well-being will be monitored.
Some of the staff were themselves affected by the incident as parents of students at the school. Staff have also been taken off duty on Saturday.
Ågren describes “sadness and depression” in Fagersta.
But many people are joining in, and it feels like a common force in some way in this.
Here to remember
Tove Spolander, chairwoman of the children and youth committee in the neighboring municipality of Norberg, is bringing her daughter Edith Winqvist, who does not attend Brinell School herself, but wants to show respect for those affected.
“I had a little trouble sleeping last night,” says Edith Winqvist.
Muna Abd Raboh feels deeply for the family of the 17-year-old who was killed. Muna Abd Raboh herself attends Brinell School but had just yesterday afternoon persuaded her friends to go to Järntorget instead of returning to school.
Every time I think about it, I think it could have been me, or any of us, she says.
She also knows one of the two boys who were seriously injured.
He's really nice, likes to joke around, we're really worried about him.
