The explosion was the biggest ever seen by Canada's bomb experts in Afghanistan, and last night the scale of its damage was paraded across the warm tarmac at Kandahar Air Field.
A line of coffins stretched into the darkness as pallbearers walked six of their comrades into the belly of a transport plane. The padre chose only a few words of farewell to the men who died instantly on Wednesday when their troop carrier was blown into the air.
Reading from Psalm 121, Captain Steele Lazerte's voice echoed from loudspeakers across the straight lines of troops, more than a thousand soldiers standing at attention.
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," the padre said.
The jagged hills stood invisible beyond the airstrip. These soldiers are coming to the end of their six-month tour. Their comrades were driving on a road that winds alongside the rocky hills of Panjwai district when an enormous bomb detonated directly under their RG-31 Nyala. An initial investigation has concluded that no vehicle could have withstood the blast, Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Walker said.
Even the military engineers who responded to the blast said they had never seen the aftermath of such a large improvised explosive device, the battle group commander said.
"They've never seen an explosion, an IED, this big in their experience on this tour," Col. Walker said. "By looking at the crater, it was quite huge, over three metres across, and a metre and a half deep." He continued: "There's no vehicle — and the RG is one of the best vehicles in the world — there is no vehicle that was going to survive that."
The commander said he had personally inspected the wreckage, and it gave him pause. "When I looked at it I went, 'Wow, this was powerful.' I knew by looking at the vehicle, those young men died instantly. There was no doubt about it."
The remains of the blast's seventh victim, an interpreter named Hamid, were sent back to his family in Kabul on a separate flight. A military spokesman said his family will get compensation.
IEDs, usually buried under roads or tracks, are an increasingly common threat in Kandahar. The Canadian military estimates that foreign troops have struck 150 IEDs in the past 12 months, and an equal number of IEDs were discovered before they exploded.
Of the foiled bombs, about two-thirds were reported by Afghan civilians or security services, according to military figures.
A total of 37 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died in bombings since the beginning of the Afghan mission, including suicide attacks.
This week's blast pushed the total Canadian death toll in this country to 67.
The Canadians here have seen so many coffins at a ramp ceremony only once before, in April, when another massive IED struck a LAV-3 armoured vehicle in Maywand district. That bomb was triggered by a pressure plate, but the military declined to reveal how this week's explosion was set off. Col. Walker even suggested it could have been a mine left over from the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, despite the fact that the gravel road was heavily travelled by local and military traffic.
The Canadian commander did concede that the insurgents' roadside bombs are growing deadlier.
"The technology changes," Col. Walker said. "Are they becoming more sophisticated and powerful? It depends whether you hit them or not."
Major Chris Henderson, commander of the rifle company that suffered the latest deaths, said he reminded his troops to steel themselves for the final weeks of their deployment.
"Today we mourn, tomorrow we get back at completing our mission," Major Henderson said.
