Swiss officials say DNA and dental analysis needed to identify around 40 victims of a New Year’s Eve bar fire that also injured 115 people.
CRANS-MONTANA: Investigators face an arduous task identifying the victims of a deadly fire that engulfed a crowded bar at a New Year’s Eve party in this Swiss ski resort.
The blaze at the Le Constellation bar killed around 40 people and injured 115, many seriously, in one of the worst tragedies in modern Switzerland.
Swiss officials said the burns suffered by the mostly young crowd were so severe that identification could take days.
ALSO READ: Eight French nationals missing after deadly Swiss ski resort fire
“The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies,” Crans-Montana mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference.
Mathias Reynard, head of government for the canton of Valais, said experts were using dental and DNA samples.
“All this work needs to be done because the information is so terrible and sensitive that nothing can be told to the families unless we are 100 percent sure,” he said.
Authorities said the fire appeared to be an accident rather than an attack.
Some survivor accounts and social media footage suggested the bar’s basement ceiling caught fire when sparkling candles got too close.
Hundreds of people stood in silence near the scene on Thursday night to pay their respects.
Dozens left flowers or lit candles on a makeshift altar near the police cordon.
Police said the bodies of some victims still lay inside the bar as they worked to identify everyone.
Kean Sarbach, 17, said he spoke to four people who escaped, some with burns, who told him the flames spread very quickly.
Elisa Sousa, 17, said she was meant to be at the bar but attended a family gathering instead.
“And honestly, I’ll need thank my mother a hundred times for not letting me go,” she said at the vigil. – Reuters
