- A fire in a bar in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana claimed 40 lives.
- The cause of the fire is apparently related to sparklers in champagne bottles.
- Formal identification of victims is lengthy and difficult due to their injuries.
Police in the Swiss canton of Valais have identified the bodies of the first four victims of a fire that occurred on New Year’s Eve in a bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana. 113 of the 119 injured have already been formally identified, police chief Frédéric Gisler told the BFM news website on Saturday, writes TASR. Most of the guests at the bar were teenagers and young adults.
The fire claimed a total of 40 lives. The first to be identified are two Swiss citizens aged 21 and 16 and two Swiss men aged 18 and 16. According to Éric Bonvin, director of the Hôpital du Valais in Sion, the identification of the victims is difficult and will be lengthy due to the nature of the injuries, which often make it impossible to visually confirm the identity. Most of the injured suffered extensive and serious burns.
Head of the burn center at the Children’s Hospital in Zurich, Kathrin Neuhaus said that some of her patients suffered burns to more than 70 percent of their bodies, including their lungs, and many suffered respiratory damage from smoke inhalation. Patients are hospitalized in intensive care units in Switzerland, as well as in Italy, France, Germany and Belgium.
Two days after the tragedy, residents and visitors to the Crans-Montana resort came to Le Constellation bar on Saturday, where they laid flowers and lit candles in honor of the victims. A memorial service will be held in the town on Friday, January 9.
The fire in the bar was apparently caused by sparklers in champagne bottles. There are videos on social networks of a waitress holding such bottles while sitting on her colleague’s shoulders. The insulation material in the ceiling quickly ignited from the sparklers.
The head of the fire service for public facilities, David Audisio, warned in an interview with France 3 television that the use of such sparklers or candles must be strictly regulated, because the sparks reach temperatures sufficient to ignite flammable materials such as suspended ceilings or sound insulation. These materials are often saturated with chemicals that release highly toxic gases such as hydrogen cyanide, sulfuric acid, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide when burned, which can cause rapid death if inhaled.
The police have already interviewed the owner of the bar Jacqua Moretti and the operators of the bar as witnesses. Moretti confirmed to La Tribune Genève that the bar had been inspected three times over the course of ten years and everything was in compliance. No charges have been filed at this time.
