Featured in the international press, the image shows the moment in which the fire started from champagne bottles near the ceiling, with decorative candles, in the Le Constellation bar, in the ski resort of Crans-Montana, Switzerland, where a devastating fire caused more than 40 deaths and more than 100 injuries.
An image is circulating around the world that shows the moment the fire started on the bar’s ceiling. Le Constellation from the ski resort of Crans-Montana, Switzerland, during New Year’s Eve. The tragedy caused more than 40 deaths and more than 100 injuries, including at least one minor.
In the image, it is possible to see several young people lifting champagne bottles near the ceiling, with decorative candles in the shape of rocketstypical of clubs or bars during festive events. The fire spread quickly through the foam that covered the ceiling of the establishment.
“It looked like a horror movie”
Although the investigation is still ongoing, which will determine whether the establishment complied with all safety standardseverything indicates that the fire started accidental way.
“There was only a 1.5 meter wide door for 200 or 300 people to get out. People fell, suffocated, and so on,” one of the survivors told the press at the scene.
Oscar, one of the witnesses of the disaster, described the moments of terror experienced at the scene: “Everyone was banging on the windows and screaming. It was like a horror movie, but they couldn’t get out. The windows were too thick and then people fell on top of each other, leaving them completely burned, their faces completely destroyed.”
Identification of victims will take time
According to Bernard Marcresponsible for Forensic Medicine at the Compiègne Forensic Unit, the fact that it was a fire makes the process of identifying victims even more complex.
“In common identification situations, such as fingerprints, the hands are the first to be destroyed, truly destroyed by fire, so researchers are faced with bodies in which this is no longer possible. The face is destroyed, the skull is quickly damaged. The hair will be severely burned. And so, only this (3D image) is available and, of course, the DNA, which will be the only element available.”
The complexity of the victim identification process collides with the desperate wait for the relatives of the disappeared, made difficult by the fact that we do not know, neither the exact number nor the identity of the people who were present at the scene.
Emanuele Galeppini, a 16 year old Italian golferis to date the only fatal victim formally identified.
