While the bodies of three Malawian women lay in a state mortuary, their husbands kept vigil at the building site in George, waiting for news about their wives, hoping and praying they would emerge alive.
The husbands had not been told their wives' bodies had been pulled from the rubble days earlier and taken to the mortuary.
Tiwonge Mhlango, 28, Ester Ngwira, 30, and Florence Kawonga, 29, all died when the five-storey building collapsed in George last week, and their husbands have finally managed to identify their bodies.