At the crash site along the Texas-Oklahoma border, travelers stepped from their cars or from buses on Sunday and placed candles, a wreath of flowers, and a cross and a card at the makeshift memorial.

Mourners gathered in a circle and sang a prayer for the victims. Some wept.

“I was pretty shocked when I heard about it because ... there’s a lot of people that we know on that bus,” said James Tran, 28, of Houston. “So I’m thinking that could have been us and it made me realize that life is really short and precious and you never know when — you know — it might can happen to you.”

Portraits of five parishioners who died in the crash were displayed during Sunday services at the Vietnamese Martyr Church in Houston. The Rev. Vu Thanh told churchgoers they must accept the tragedy as a “door that God has opened.”

The crash in Sherman is among the nation’s deadliest. In 2005, 23 people were killed near Dallas when a bus carrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire.