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One day after panic and confusion took over a shopping mall in Nairobi, survivors' accounts and photographs provide a close-up perspective of the scene. Their stories have given new detail to the chaos that erupted after attackers used grenades and guns to begin a standoff that lasted into Sunday.

A teenager tells Agence France-Presse about the chaos that broke out just as he was leaving the mall's rooftop parking lot.

"I got scared. I tried to run down the stairs and saw someone running towards the top, I ran back and hid behind one of the cars," Umar Ahmed, 18, said.

Lying on the ground, he played dead. Speaking to AFP from the hospital, where was recovering from burn wounds, Ahmed said an attacker came to look at him.

"Thankfully he turned back," he said. "After a while, the police came and we were able to be evacuated."

Mall employee Sudjar Singh tells the news agency, "The gunmen tried to fire at my head but missed. At least 50 people were shot. There are definitely many casualties."

The desperate hours that followed the attack were also captured by New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks, who was able to get inside the building. His images show a human struggle to survive, set against the incongruous backdrop of glitzy shops and cafes. You can see them at the Times site; we warn you that some of the photos depict scenes of bloodshed.

In an interview at The Times, Hicks explains what drew him to spend about two hours in the mall. He says he happened to be nearby — and when he saw people running away from the building, he ran toward it. He eventually accompanied police who were clearing sections of the mall.

"There were many civilians who had barricaded themselves inside shops, inside the movie theater, inside restaurants, inside a beauty salon — it seemed like everywhere you went, there were more people who just appeared out of the woodwork," Hicks says.

Another point of view comes from the AP's Jason Straziuso, who faced unique difficulties in covering the traumatic event. Straziuso reported on the attack, even as he tried to help friends visiting him in Nairobi — and who were trapped inside the mall Saturday. Later, he wrote about the more personal side of the story.

The visiting family had been separated, with the mother who was eight months pregnant seeking safety on the roof and her husband and daughter hiding in a back room. They communicated via texts and phone calls.

Here's how one call went, Straziuso says:

"'Jason, can you make sure the police know there are civilians on the roof?' she asked me. One person had stuck his head over the side and was greeted with a bullet, likely from police."

The family eventually reached safety — but as Straziuso notes, for many, the day ended in tears.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was strongly favored to win a third term at the helm of Europe's biggest economy as Germans voted in a national election Sunday, but the popular conservative's hopes of governing with center-right allies for another four years were in the balance.

Nearly 62 million people were eligible to elect the lower house of Parliament, which in turn chooses the chancellor.

Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and its Bavaria-only sister, the Christian Social Union, appeared likely to emerge as the strongest force and fend off a challenge from center-left rival Peer Steinbrueck. But beyond that, things may get more complicated.

No single party has won a majority in Germany in more than 50 years. Merkel would like to continue governing with her partner of choice, the pro-business Free Democratic Party — but polls have shown support for the smaller party fading from nearly 15 percent in the 2009 election to around the 5 percent needed to keep any seats in Parliament.

Merkel pleaded Saturday for "a strong mandate so that I can serve Germany for another four years, make policies for ... a strong Germany, for a country that is respected in Europe, that works for Europe; a country that stands up for its interests in the world but is a friend of many nations."

Her party has rebuffed calls from leading Free Democrats for Merkel supporters to back them, saying it has no votes to spare. Polls showed the coalition in a dead heat with a combination of Steinbrueck's Social Democrats, their Green allies and the hard-line Left Party — but the two center-left parties have ruled out an alliance with the latter.

If her current coalition falls short of a parliamentary majority, the likeliest outcome is a switch to a Merkel-led "grand coalition" of her conservatives with the Social Democrats, the same combination of traditional rivals that ran Germany from 2005 to 2009 in Merkel's first term.

That's unlikely to produce a radical change in policies. However, it could signal subtle shifts, perhaps a greater emphasis on bolstering economic growth over the austerity that Germany has insisted on in exchange for bailing out economically weak European countries such as Greece.

Final results are due within hours of polls closing at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). But with margins so close, the country could still face weeks of horse-trading before a clear picture of the new government emerges.

Merkel calls her current coalition "the most successful government since reunification" 23 years ago. She points to the robust economy and unemployment which, at 6.8 percent, is very low for Germany and far below that of many other European countries.

Polls gave Merkel popularity ratings of about 70 percent. The sky-high popularity doesn't extend to her coalition, which has bickered frequently over issues ranging from tax cuts to privacy laws. The Free Democrats have taken much of the blame.

"They said it was a marriage of love — that was how they ran in 2009 — and then the divorce lawyer spent the whole time running along the sidelines," Steinbrueck said at a rally in Frankfurt on Saturday.

Steinbrueck's platform stresses the importance of narrowing the gap between rich and poor. He wants to introduce a national minimum wage and raise income tax for top earners. Merkel and the Free Democrats contend that both measures could backfire and hurt the economy.

A new party, Alternative for Germany, which calls for an "orderly breakup" of the euro currency zone and appeals to socially conservative voters, could sap votes from the governing parties and complicate Sunday's outcome. Polls suggested that it could enter Parliament — but Merkel and others are ruling out working with it.

"Stabilizing the euro is not just a good thing for Europe, it is in the elementary interests of Germany," Merkel said Saturday. "It secures jobs and it secures our prosperity."

She said that her course of helping Europe's strugglers in exchange for budget discipline and reforms "must be continued."

A euro breakup "would set European unification back 20 to 30 years" and ruin German businesses, said Steinbrueck, whose party backed Merkel's eurozone policies in Parliament but criticized her for over-emphasizing austerity.

Germany's government, he said, has "a clear European responsibility to hold this continent together."

An opinion poll published Sunday by the weekly Bild am Sonntag put support for Merkel's conservatives at 39 percent. Her allies the Free Democrats were at 6 percent.

Steinbrueck's Social Democrats would receive 26 percent of the vote, according to the poll. The Greens and the Left Party each came in at 9 percent.

The survey of 2,047 voters was conducted by the Emnid research institute from Sept. 15-20.

A chance for families in South and North Korea to meet their long-lost relatives has been put off indefinitely, as North Korea canceled reunions that were to take place in the coming week. A South Korean official called the decision "inhumane" Saturday.

"The North's postponement shattered the thrill and hopes of nearly 200 families overnight and deserves denunciation as an inhumane act," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Eyi-do said, according to The Korea Herald.

NPR's Jason Strother reports from Seoul, for our Newscast unit:

"The resumption of inter-Korean family reunions was seen as a step toward reconciliation. But Pyongyang says due to South Korea's conservative policies, separated families will have to wait indefinitely.

"The South Korean Red Cross says each year, thousands of people die who were on the waiting list to meet lost loved ones. These are Koreans who were separated when the peninsula was permanently divided during the Korean War 60 years ago.

"Earlier this week, the two Koreas reopened a joint factory complex in the North."

The U.S. and Russia have been taking lots of jabs at each other.

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized President Obama's plan for a military strike in Syria, and the Russian leader then denounced American "exceptionalism" in a biting op-ed in The New York Times.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., fired back Thursday with his own op-ed in the Russian paper Pravda, entitled, "Russia Deserves Better Than Putin."

Even Monday's shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, in which a gunmen killed 12 people, has become part of the feud.

Alexei Pushkov, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia's parliament, used the shooting to mock the United States as it was happening.

"A new shootout at Navy headquarters in Washington — a lone gunman and seven corpses. Nobody's even surprised anymore. A clear confirmation of American exceptionalism," Puskoy tweeted.

Новая стрельба у штаба ВМС в Вашингтоне - одинокий стрелок и 7 трупов. Никто уже не удивлен. Наглядное подтверждение "амер.исключительности"

— Алексей Пушков (@Alexey_Pushkov) September 16, 2013