Investigators began this Friday (2) the painful task of identifying the bodies burned in a fire that ripped through a crowded bar and killed around 40 people, during a New Year’s party in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.
Emanuele Galeppini, a 16-year-old Italian golfer who lived in Dubai, was declared the first victim of Italian nationality to be identified.
The burns suffered by most of the young people partying at Le Constellation bar were so serious that Swiss authorities said it could take days before all the victims of the fire that also injured more than 100 people, many seriously, are identified.
Parents of missing young people asked for news of their loved ones, while foreign embassies scrambled to find out whether their citizens were among those involved in one of modern Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
“I’ve been looking for my son for 30 hours. The wait is unbearable,” Laetitia, mother of 16-year-old Arthur, told BFM TV, saying she was desperate to know if he was alive or dead, and where.
“If he’s in the hospital, I don’t know which hospital he’s in. If he’s in the morgue, I don’t know which morgue he’s in. If my son is alive, he’s alone in the hospital and I can’t be by his side.”
Authorities warned that identifying the victims or establishing a definitive death toll would take time because many of the bodies were badly burned.
“All this work needs to be done because the information is so terrible and sensitive that nothing can be said to the families unless we are 100% sure,” said Mathias Reynard, head of government for the canton of Valais. According to him, experts are using dental and DNA samples to identify the victims.
It was unclear what caused the fire. Swiss authorities said it may have been an accident rather than an attack.
