These Are The American Germanwings Victims

The world's attention has been dominated over the last 24 hours by the tragic crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in the French Alps, a horrifying incident that's left 150 people — 144 passengers and 6 crew members – presumed dead, as investigators sift through the remnants. And now the two slain passengers who hailed from the United States have been confirmed — two American Germanwings passengers were identified Wednesday, a mother and daughter by the names of Emily and Yvonne Selke.

For Yvonne and her daughter Emily, the memorializing has already begun. As detailed by the Washington Post, Emily's former sorority at Drexel College, Gamma Sigma Sigma, has tweeted out a beautiful picture of her in remembrance. Both women are survived by father and husband Raymond Selke, who confirmed the pair were aboard the plane when it went down.

According to the Post, Raymond Selke was "too distraught" to discuss the situation further when they contacted him, and that makes all the sense in the world. It's hard to imagine suffering this kind of loss in such sudden fashion, and all the harder to imagine having the press calling you up about it. A statement was released by the Selke family, however, as noted by NBC News.

Our entire family is saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke. Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers.

Both women were accomplished in different ways. Yvonne was an employee of U.S. government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, while Emily had a seemingly vibrant future in media ahead of her — she was a honors student who reportedly graduated from Drexel's music industry program back in 2013.

But now both of them are gone, surely leaving a heartbreaking absence in the lives of their loved ones. There's no telling how long it will take for investigators to get to the bottom of why Flight 9525 actually crashed, with the process of extracting data from the plane's black boxes still underway, but this much is clear: people across the state of Virginia and beyond are a lot sadder today.