SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) -- More than 12 hours after a Brazilian jet airliner crash killed at least 200 people, smoke continued to pour from a building destroyed in the disaster. CNN correspondent Harris Whitbeck offered these observations from the scene Wednesday:
WHITBECK: Standing about 100 feet from the charred structure, I see signs of the incredible heat generated by the inferno which ignited when a TAM Airlines Airbus A320 tried to land, skidded across a busy highway and slammed into the building.
Fire officials say the blaze reached 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit [about 1,000 degrees Celsius] at one point, making it virtually impossible for anyone aboard the aircraft to have survived.
Above the building, waving from its rooftop, flags fly -- unrecognizable because they're tattered and blackened. Next door, a gas station beside the TAM building was damaged by flames from the crash, but the station and its gas pumps remain intact. 
Watch video of the plane as it landed and crashed »
TAM Airlines said seven of its employees on the ground were killed in the crash, although it's unknown how many people may have been in the building.
The concrete structure once stood four or five stories high. Now [it] looks like it was literally blown out. Its inside is completely charred with smoke pouring out of it.
Inside a nearby hotel, victims' family members and other loved ones gathered, awaiting any official word on identification of remains. They're apparently being taken care of by airline officials.
Before the airliner slammed into this building, witnesses said it crossed the Avenida Washington Luis, which is eight lanes wide -- four lanes in each direction. More than 12 hours after the disaster, emergency vehicles block a single lane of the highway, now closed to traffic.
The runway where the plane tried to land appears to end where the highway starts.
As for the airport itself, it reopened for business at 6 a.m. This is the busiest airport in Brazil. During the past five years, there has been an almost 49 percent increase in domestic air traffic here as a result of a growing economy and increased need for travel.
A Brazilian court in February banned large jets at the busy airport because of safety concerns. But there was an outcry about limiting the convenient, busy airport, and an appeals court reversed the ruling. E-mail to a friend 
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