Fellow journalists, politicians and members of the public are expressing their condolences for Michelle Lang, the 34-year-old award-winning reporter who was killed in Kandahar city, Afghanistan, on Wednesday afternoon.

A health-care reporter for the Calgary Herald who was working for Canwest News Service while in Afghanistan, Lang became the first Canadian journalist to die in the war when the armoured vehicle she was riding in was struck by an improvised explosive device.

Four Canadian soldiers were also killed in the powerful blast, and several others were injured. The Taliban has since claimed responsibility for the attack.

Lorne Motley, editor-in-chief of the Calgary Herald, said Lang's death will reverberate across the country's news industry.

"Michelle was not only a great journalist, she was a great person -- and that's what's so difficult about this to accept," he told CTV News Channel. "There are lots of really good journalists in our craft, but Michelle was one of those people that really lit up the room."

"When you lose someone of that ability and that type of person, it creates a very large hole in the journalism community," he added. "It's a loss for other journalists and other journalism organizations -- and I hope people don't forget that."

Lang won a National Journalism Award for beat reporting last year and was engaged to be married in July.

She was on a six-week assignment in Afghanistan for Canwest, and arrived in the country only two weeks prior to her death. The attack came as she ventured off of a military base for the first time, embedded with Canadian troops.

Her first article from Afghanistan was published on Dec. 20, with her last article published on the Herald's website on Tuesday.

Denis Skulsky, president and CEO of Canwest Publishing, released a statement on Thursday, describing his "shock and sadness" at Lang's death, which he said was "an unbelievable loss."

Arnold Amber, president of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, said he felt "incredible remorse for the loss of the life of a very young journalist who had so much to look forward to."

"She was killed just doing the job that she had to get done," Amber told CTV News Channel.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff released separate statements about the bombing.

Harper wrote that Lang's "unforeseen and tragic death will be felt in Calgary and communities across Canada."

Ignatieff said that she "risked her life to keep Canadians informed about our mission and the contributions of all the men and women who serve there."

"With her passing, we reflect on the importance of a free press as a foundation of democracy," Ignatieff wrote.

Many others expressed their condolences online. By late Thursday morning, a webpage on the popular social-networking site Facebook had been created to remember Lang, and had accumulated close to 1,000 members.

"Michelle, this is not the way I wanted to catch (up) with you since high school, but I am so proud of your achievements and the legacy you have left behind," Gordon Wong wrote. "My condolences to your loved ones. May you rest in peace."

Debating the risks

Colin Perkel, a reporter with The Canadian Press in Kandahar who worked with Lang during her brief time there, said that leaving the relative safety of a military base was a necessary risk for a journalist who wanted to cover the Canadian mission effectively.

"Getting out there with the soldiers onto the streets of Afghanistan," is the "only way to see what it is that the soldiers are doing on a daily basis -- and they are doing some incredibly remarkable things," Perkel said.

CTV's Washington Bureau Chief Paul Workman, who has reported from Afghanistan, said Lang's death may prompt many journalists to "a really hard look at the situation" and decide whether they will continue to accompany soldiers patrolling outside of military bases there.

He added that, although war journalists receive training to help them keep out of harms way, many risks are unavoidable under such circumstances.

"You get yourself inside an armoured vehicle, you think you're relatively safe, but of course there just is no way of being fully safe," Workman said. "These bombs can penetrate these vehicles."

According to Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, 101 journalists and media workers were killed around the world during 2009. That's up from 87 deaths a year earlier.

With files from The Canadian Press