EDITOR’S NOTE: Last Thursday, April 7, a gunman entered under a false pretext the Tasso da Silveira school in a Rio de Janeiro suburb, carrying two pistols and dozens of rounds of ammunition. An alumnus himself of the same school where he had a history of being bullied and mental illness, he lined children up facing the wall and shot two dozen of them, before turning the gun on himself. Twelve students were dead, and others are still agonizing in the hospital.

This is the most painful type of story for most photographers, when a senseless tragedy involves children. The two Reuters photographers who covered the shooting and subsequent funerals speak here of their experiences, and how they coped professionally and personally.

Sergio Moraes, 49, father of two, writes:

I woke up on April 7, the morning a gunman attacked students at Tasso da Silveira middle school, with a slight headache only hours after celebrating my son’s 18th birthday. A journalist from the newsroom called early to tell me that a man had entered a school in a Rio suburb and injured a few people. It sounded serious but since there were no apparent fatalities I called my colleague Ricardo, who was closer, and asked him to go to the school. It was only when I began to monitor my news sources that I realized we had a huge story on our hands, and I raced to Realengo, the middle class neighborhood where the school was. I called Ricardo and assigned him to the hospital as I arrived at the school.

The scene at the school was one of families’ desperation for news of their children. It took a few moments to get my bearings and know where to begin to photograph. The first thing I thought about were my own kids and how I would like to be with them now, but the importance of our work at times like these was very clear. We were documenting the first attack of this type in Brazil. My head cleared and I began to photograph with precision what I was witnessing.

The worst came on April 8, the day after the attack, when 10 young victims were buried. It was an exercise in how to cover a story so grave without offending or showing disrespect for the families that had lost their children. I first tried to talk with some of them and show that I wasn’t a vulture preying on their grief. I had arrived early to show them my solidarity with their pain, and simply observed from afar while discreetly taking pictures.

A hundred questions raced through my mind as I sat in a taxi zigzagging through traffic towards what first reports described as a major disaster area, a rush-hour plane crash in downtown Sao Paulo.Will my taxi be able to get close enough to the crash? Will I have to hike the city’s dangerous streets with my camera gear? Will my cell phone connect to the Internet as thousands of people call their relatives? Are other photographers already at the site? What scenes of disaster and grieving will I encounter? Will my longest lens be long enough?Amid all these thoughts, despite the screaming sirens and my urgency to arrive, my mind flashed back 15 years in time to a distant memory - a bus ride in Bolivia. That bus ride, along an Andean mountain track that is popularly known as the world’s most dangerous road, was the last time in memory that I traveled anywhere without carrying anxiety as part of my emotional baggage.Then, I rode in a window seat of a rusty, 45-passenger bus with my head out the window observing the breathtaking scenery. I couldn’t help noticing how curious it was to watch the bus’ rear tire skirting the edge of the cliff and pushing stones into the green abyss as it rounded every tight curve of the winding road, a road not always wide enough for the bus I was in.I sensed only curiosity. No fear. No thoughts of the consequences of a simple driver error, a loose boulder falling onto the roadbed or even brake failure.One day soon after that ride I was called out, just as I was called to this tragedy in Sao Paulo, to photograph the crash of a bus identical to the one I had traveled in. It had slipped off the edge of that same mountain road and broken into pieces as it tumbled into the rocky jungle below.The bodies and belongings of the 45 occupants were strewn all down the cliff face. Some hung from trees. Relatives arrived at the site in despair. Rescue workers brought the remains up from the gorge in a scene that I would soon learn was all too common along that perilous route.That was the first accident story of my news career, and traveling has never felt the same since.After that crash I returned many times to visit that spectacular part of Bolivia, but never again in a bus too wide for the road.A few years later I covered my first plane crash in Uruguay. Again, I lost my serenity forever. Since then I have never flown without feeling a certain anxiety about what I had seen can happen to airplanes.Today, several bus and plane crashes later, a disaster like this one in Sao Paulo is to me another grim reminder of what can happen to a relatively few, very unfortunate travelers.The crash site I finally arrived at in Sao Paulo was one of devastation and disbelief. It was still too early for grief, but the following days were dominated by it.I pity the distraught relatives of the 187 unsuspecting occupants of the TAM Airbus that ended in tragedy. As I return to the job of covering more routine news, they will relive that day relentlessly for years to come.After photographing the accident that has since been labeled as Brazils worst-ever plane crash, I expect to feel maybe a little more anxiety the next time I step into a plane.But whenever that happens the memory I will most likely recall, for better or for worse, is that of a serene bus ride along the worlds most dangerous road.(credits from top: Rickey Rogers – photos 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; Paulo Whitaker – photo 4)