Helicopter death toll rises to nine

Another body was found last night within the Clutha Vaults pub in Glasgow where the police helicopter crashed on Friday night - bringing the total to nine.
Police Scotland have also named another victim as Samuel McGhee, 56, of Glasgow.
Deputy Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick said: "This remains an ongoing investigation and search focused on the Clutha Vaults pub. The site is extremely challenging and the efforts of colleagues from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and investigators have been painstaking.
"We can now confirm that Samuel McGhee died during the incident on Friday. Our thoughts are with his family and friends tonight as they are with all those affected by this tragedy.
"Sadly I can also confirm the discovery of a further body within the site. This takes to nine the total number of people who died on Friday night.
"Our absolute priority has been to locate the bodies of people who were within the pub at the time of the incident and recover them safely. This process takes time, as formal identification procedures have to take place before we can notify relatives and publicly confirm identities.
"We are doing all we can to support the families of those who have lost loved ones. It is essential that we maintain sensitivity and dignity for the families of the deceased."

And yesterday all  day long they came, a slowly-changing tableau of faces, all of them trying to catch a glimpse of the Clutha bar.

In truth, there wasn't much to see at Stockwell Street yesterday.

Beyond the screened-off site, all that was visible were the cranes belonging to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the plant hire company.

Nevertheless, people came to pay their respects, or just to gaze at a scene that was now familiar across much of the world. The mood was subdued.

At one stage, a group of men and women, looking drawn and emotional, were waiting at the crash barrier and quietly giving each other support.

Along the front of a nearby Italian restaurant, next door to the Scotia Bar, lay a long line of floral tributes, which were added to every now and then.

His head bandaged, Craig Bain, 35, of Renfrew, who survived the Clutha tragedy, arrived with his wife to lay some flowers.

He said: "I just remember waking up and being pulled out by a fireman.

"I can't remember anything after that. I've just come out of hospital."

In between the two rows of crash barriers clustered the media: print and broadcast reporters, photographers, and TV crews from the UK, America, Italy, Germany.

There were laptops, aluminium ladders for the photographers, cups of coffee.

Mingling with them were members of the public, standing with their arms folded, gazing at the scene.

There were people with their dogs, people with their children, people with cameraphones.

Just across the road, at the traffic lights at the junction with Howard Street, other bystanders waited, and stared.

A couple of minutes' walk away, on Argyle Street, the Christmas shopping season was in full swing.

The contrast between these two scenes, each oblivious of the other, was striking.

"It's incongruous," said one pensioner, blinking in to the low sun, her black dog on a lead at her feet.

"There are people just up the road singing in the street and here you have this."

As she spoke, weekend-breakers dragged their suitcases out of the Holiday Inn Express on Clyde Street, the hotel that had become a de facto base for the early rescue operation. Some paused to read the floral tributes.

"It's so sad," said Theresa Hawthorne.

"They are saying, 'You won't be forgotten' and 'To all my loved ones'. I shall never forget this. During the night we could hear it all."

Ms Hawthorne, 58, from Bathgate, was making her annual festive shopping trip to Glasgow.

She always stays at the Holiday Inn Express, not least because its the closest hotel to the Clutha.

Normally she would have popped by to listen to some live music.

"We come here year after year and usually go the pub.

"This time we arrived on Saturday, the day after the accident, and we weren't even sure we would be able to stay

"In the end we got a first-floor room overlooking the scene. We could see just how carefully the rescue services were working.

"Normally we would go out in Glasgow but we just weren't in the mood.

"It was so odd going in to the town - where it seemed the whole thing was forgotten just a few yards away."

Behind her, well-wishers arrived with more flowers.

One was Agnes Nicol, 57, of Rutherglen, a Clutha regular: "It was just such a very, very cheery place , where everybody was friendly and there was never any trouble or violence.

"Knowing the Clutha, it was no surprise people helped out."

Not everyone in the city centre, though, had forgotten the Clutha. Outside the Sainsbury store at the Buchanan Galleries, two buskers were playing acoustic guitars. Propped up inside an open guitar case was a large, handwritten, cardboard sign: 'All funds raised will be donated to the Clutha victims and families.'

As night fell, an eerie quiet descended with the darkness on Stockwell Street.

After the evening news broadcasts, cameras were switched off and slowly the packed area began to thin.

A couple of firefighters could be seen on the roof of the Clutha, and in the foreground police officers gathered to guard the cordon.

People filtered in and out of the Scotia Bar, lingering to gaze with what seemed like disbelief at the tragic scene just along the road.

And into the nighttime, people continued to arrive, politely asking permission from police officers to lay their flowers next to the dozens of tributes.

For many it will be another long night awaiting news and updates about injured or missing relatives.

And beside the scene of the tragedy, the evening vigil continued.