Church bells across Poland have tolled and an emergency siren has wailed to mark the minute a week ago that a plane crashed in western Russia, killing Poland's president, his wife and many of the country's civilian and military elite.

Poland will wait until after Sunday’s state funeral for President Lech Kaczynski to decide when to hold an early election to replace him.

Thousands of mourners threw flowers on a slow-moving hearse and joined an enormous viewing line at Warsaw’s Presidential Palace to pay their respects to Lech Kaczynski and his wife as their bodies lay in state.

The body of Poland's first lady was flown home from Russia to an emotional welcome today.

Bodies remain trapped in the wreckage of a Polish plane that crashed in Russia on Saturday, killing 96 people including President Lech Kaczynski.

Readings from flight recorders indicate there were no technical problems with a Soviet-made plane which crashed, killing the Polish President and 95 other people, Russian investigators said today.

The death of Poland’s president and many elite figures in Saturday’s plane crash in Russia rekindled memories of the wartime Katyn massacre.

President Mary McAleese joined the country’s Polish community today to mourn the loss of their head of state and scores of other passengers in a devastating plane crash.

Thousands of people stood silent in the streets of Poland’s cities today in a silent memorial to President Lech Kaczynski and the other 95 people killed in a devastating plane crash.

Poles wept before their televisions, lowered flags to half-mast and taped black ribbons in their windows after hearing that President Lech Kaczynski and the upper echelons of the establishment lay dead in woods a short drive from the site of the Katyn forest massacre, where 22,000 Polish officers were killed by Soviet secret police in one of Poland’s greatest national traumas.

A week of national mourning has been declared in Poland after the country's President died in a plane crash.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife died today along with 130 others when their plane crashed while coming in for a landing in western Russia, officials said.

The governor of a Russian region where a plane carrying Poland’s President has crashed said there are no survivors.

It is being reported that a plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski has crashed, with 87 people feared dead.