WATCH: Parents hear from injured missionary son in Brussels

(CNN) — A Peruvian mother says goodbye to her twin 3-year-old girls at the airport. Moments later an explosion rips through the boarding area, and the 36-year-old woman is dead.

Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz was about to catch a flight to New York on Tuesday. The plan was to meet up with her husband and young daughters a few days later for Easter.

But as Ruiz’s young family stepped away from the departure area, she walked into the path of suicide bombers.

Ruiz was the first publicly confirmed victim of the Brussels attacks, one of at least 30 people killed. Hundreds more were wounded.

Two more deaths have now been confirmed.

Belgian law student Leopold Hecht was also killed in the attack, his school, Universite Saint-Louis Bruxelles, said in a statement.

And Olivier Delespesse was killed in the metro explosion, said his employer, La Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, a government ministry serving Francophone Brussels and Wallonia.

“I wanted to pay tribute to him and to his family and to all the other victims,” said colleague Olivier Dradin in a Facebook tribute to Delespesse.

As the dust settles, more stories — of carnage and courage — are emerging.

Tales of horror …

The atmosphere in Brussels felt quietly composed Wednesday as grisly details of the previous day’s horror emerged.

Airport baggage handler Iphonse Lyoura described a scene from a nightmare.

“There was a woman who couldn’t talk,” he told CNN affiliate BFMTV. “There was a man who had lost his two legs. There was a police officer with a mangled leg.

“It’s horrible. Belgium doesn’t deserve this.”

The hellish scene was recounted by another survivor, Giulia Paravinci.

“The man I was talking to said he heard someone screaming something in Arabic, then (nearby) a woman’s leg exploded. Her husband, who was standing next to her, also lost a leg, and a policeman who was running toward them also lost a leg.

“One woman who was holding her baby was screaming, ‘Where’s my baby?’ because she had lost the other one.”

… and tales of survival.

Mason Wells was injured near the airport. It was his second brush with death. He also escaped the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

The 19-year-old from Utah reportedly was traveling with fellow Mormon missionaries Richard Norby, 66, and Joseph Empey, 20.

One of the most widely circulated images of survivors from the airport attack was of 37-year-old professional basketball player Sebastien Bellin, shown bloodied and sprawled on his back.

The former player with Belgian team BC Telenet Oostende is now recovering in the hospital after an operation on his leg.

“The force of the blast was sufficient to throw him 6 feet up into the air, and he landed back and he got shrapnel in his left leg and his right hip,” Bellin’s father, Jean, told CNN.

“He is obviously stunned. The first words out of his mouth were: ‘You wouldn’t believe the carnage I saw around.'”

United in grief

Hours after two explosions ripped through Brussels’ airport and a third in its subway system, hundreds of the city’s residents began to converge on the Place de la Bourse.

They came armed — with candles, Belgian flags and sleeping bags — to keep watch over a glowing shrine through the night.

As daylight rose over the Place de la Bourse, mourners continued their show of solidarity, forming an impromptu human chain around the ever-growing tribute.

Later, the crowd observed a minute of silence, while the nation itself marks three days of mourning for victims of the attack.