Joep Lang News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

To focus on the good memories. >> nick himself was an inspirational hero to so many people, a real story teller and natural leader, and my memories have been very fond. he's been a great role model for me. >> reporter: all told, 298 lives lost and grief felt around the world. frederik pleitgen, cnn. >> and we will continue to remember the victims aboard flight 17 and, of course, their families during this difficult time here on cnn. i'm isha sesay. >> i'm john vause. you're watching cnn newsroom. we'll be back in a minute with our continuing coverage of malaysian airlines flight 17. ge. would ...

I haven't seen so far, isha, any family members at the airport itself. >> all right. this must be a country in shock. we just saw your report on some of the victims there from the netherlands, 189 of those passengers on flight 17 were dutch nationals. just give us a sense of the broader mood there in the country at present. >> reporter: you know, yesterday we were driving around the country, what really struck me, isha, not just the diversity of the passengers is that were onboard mh17, but just the number of people affected, the family members, the friends, an entire community really gatherin...

Emotions. a friend of one of the flight attendants says they'd only spoken days ago. >> she just told me that she didn't have a transport and then she says if it is all right for you to come and pick me up. i said, why not, i just sent her to the airport and i just said i'll wait for you come back, and never come back. >> reporter: 25-year-old doctoral student at indiana university and a member of the women's rowing team. meanwhile, a daughter in australia fought back tears, remembering her parents. >> we love you and we love you so much and we're going to miss you so much, and they really wan...

Hours later, mh17 disappeared from radar and crashed in eastern ukraine. a photograph of them now sits outside her flower shop. >> it's just lovely girl. >> reporter: going to miss her? >> yes, we all. >> reporter: the irony not lost on many here that they are now laying flowers at the shop where they used to buy them. in nearby rodderdam, similar scene outside the chinese restaurant asian glories. he tells me of the moment he learned three family members weren't coming home. when you came to that realization, what was going through your mind at that time? >> everything, you lost someone you n...

One small example of his work, he argued if coca-cola could get refrigerated beverages to places all over africa, we should be able to do the same with refrigerated hiv medications. >> people in his lab and on the society as a whole, it's an incredible loss. we're all just bracing ourselves to arrive and find out who else may have been on that flight, it's just unbelievable. it's not really real yet. >> reporter: the world health organization tells cnn the spokesman glen thomas was on the flight. he most recently worked with us during the coverage of the ebola outbreak in guinea. a friend says...