For the parents of the 60 boys and 19 girl students, who arrived in two buses at around 5.30 am today, it was a long and torturous wait. Many of the parents had been waiting in the school since Tuesday afternoon when the news of the accident first came in. And as the buses carrying the students rolled in, several rushed to catch a glimpse of their children. The children were, however, immediately bundled into two rooms by the school authorities and were then let out one by one. A mother, who found the wait unbearable, fainted and her son had to be immediately called out.

Till the buses arrived, parents waited in nervous anticipation, flitting through morning newspapers and repeatedly glancing at the board where the list of injured and dead had been put. By the staircase, Sunanda Walswade waited for her sonNitin. ``I haven't had a moment's relief ever since I heard about the accident yesterday. I have stayed up all night,'' she said.

While parents and relatives were relieved to see their children, there were some students who had yet to come to terms with the ordeal. Most of the students appeared shaken, like Ganesh Kambole, who kept saying: ``I am not feeling well, I cannot speak.'' Teachers, five of whom returned today, were also in a bad shape. The principal, Sulekha Rane, was in a state of shock and she kept repeating that she wanted to go back to Aurangabad to be with her children. Prakash Shinde, a teacher who was in the bus that met with the accident, recalled that the dumper just crashed into the truck and cut into students' bodies. In his house at Bhandup, Amit Pandurang Mohite, a tenth standard student who had helped in identifying the dead, remembered: ``One of the girls sitting next to me was hit so hard that her eyes and part of her thighs were dismembered and fell in my lap.'' Amit survivedbecause minutes before the collision he had left his seat to chat with friends sitting on the other side.

While relieved parents returned home with their wards, the scene at Rajawadi Hospital, Ghatkopar, was in sharp contrast. Bodies of the eight dead students and one teacher were brought there around 9.45 am. Parents and relatives broke down as the bodies were kept in the coroner's court and taken home in ambulances.

Ashok Gawde, Ujwala Gawde's father, who works at a printing press in Dombivli, said: ``I heard the news when I'd just returned from work. Late in the night they told me she was dead.'' A disconsolate Gawde recalled that he had tried to stop his daughter -- the eldest of his two children -- from going for the tour. ``But she insisted,'' he said.

Prakash Ganghurde, uncle of Archana Nirbhawane, burst into tears as he talked about his niece. ``She was so bright...she loved sports,'' he sobbed. Archana's parents were away in Nashik and she had been staying with her uncle here. Ganghurderecalled: ``She had not been keeping well for some days and I told her not to go. But then her mother, who had come down from Nashik on Sunday, gave her the permission saying it was Archana's last year in school.''

For family members of Chitra Vinayak Tamahane, the teacher who perished in the accident, tears mingled with a tiny bit of relief as Chitra's 10-year-old daughter returned safe. Just before the accident, Himani fell asleep and Chitra passed her on to another teacher. ``She survived only because of that,'' family members said. At Ghatkopar, all the bodies were taken home by the family members, except for two Swapna Chowgule and Archana Nirbhawane -- whose parents were yet to arrive at Rajawadi Hospital. The funeral of the other six students took place at around 12.30 pm this afternoon at Sri Bhandup Gujarathi Seva Mandal crematorium.