Frantic search for missing friends after Swiss Alps bar fire kills 40, injures 115, with families and authorities struggling to identify victims.
CRANS-MONTANA: Teenagers Eleonore and Elisa began the new year with a frantic search for friends missing since a deadly fire tore through a bar in this Swiss resort town.
“Are they OK? Are they just at the hospital?” one of the 17-year-olds asked.
They have not heard from them since the blaze ripped through a New Year’s celebration at Le Constellation bar. The fire turned a night of revelry into a tragedy with global reach.
Police estimate around 40 people were killed and about 115 injured. Many of the victims were young visitors to the Swiss Alps.
Officials have started the arduous process of identifying the victims. Police warned it could take days or even weeks, as some bodies were badly burned.
Relatives and friends have been scrambling to find loved ones, circulating photos on social media.
“We tried to reach them; some of their locations are still showing here,” said one teenager, nodding at the bar now shielded by tarpaulins.
“We put them on Instagram, Facebook, every social network possible to try to find them,” Eleonore said.
“But there’s nothing. No response. We called the parents. Nothing. Even the parents don’t know,” she added.
They did get news that one friend was in a coma in a Lausanne hospital.
More than 30 victims were taken to specialised burns units in Zurich and Lausanne. Six others were taken to Geneva, according to a Swiss news agency.
There is no official estimate of the missing or a headcount from the bar that night.
Italy’s ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornado told AFP that five of the injured have not yet been identified.
A few hundred metres from the burned bar, the nearby convention centre has been turned into a crisis unit.
Guarded by police and away from the press, families of victims are received and offered assistance by authorities, diplomats and chaplains.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said the support on offer would be “long-lasting”.
Nathan, a 19-year-old who was in the bar just before it caught fire, told AFP he keeps expecting to wake up from a “nightmare”.
“It feels like… I’m going to wake up tomorrow and get all my loved ones back who sadly died in this incident,” he said.
“Normally a new year is full of happiness, but unfortunately, this has happened.”
