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Swiss authorities have said it will take “several days or more” to identify the victims of a fire in a bar that killed about 40 and injured 115 mostly young people during new year celebrations in the Crans-Montana ski resort.
Hospitals in Switzerland were still facing a “tight” situation and some wounded had been transferred to neighbouring countries including France, Italy and Germany to be treated, Mathias Reynard, head of the Valais Canton, said on Friday.
Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told the Italian newswire Ansa that it was hard to identify the victims because of “the severity of their burns”.
Authorities will use DNA tests and dental records to confirm the identities of those who died in the blaze.
Some of the injured survivors in hospital were also yet to be identified because of their condition, Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday. Tajani is due to travel to Crans-Montana on Friday.
Reynard reiterated that about 40 people had died and 115 had been injured in the blaze at Le Constellation, a bar popular with teenagers and young adults. He said that investigators had ruled out an attack or an explosion as the cause of the fire, but declined to confirm witness suggestions that pyrotechnic candles setting the ceiling ablaze might have been the reason.
Among the injured, “80-100 people are in critical condition”, Stéphane Ganzer, head of the French-speaking Canton of Valais’s security department, told French radio station RTL.
“Of the hundreds of people hospitalised,” he added, “many have not yet been identified”.
Three of the injured had already been transferred to hospitals in the French cities of Lyon and Paris, a foreign ministry spokesperson told France Info TV on Friday.
France’s health ministry had also reserved 19 beds — 15 for adults and four paediatric beds — to “be able to accommodate injured people if the Swiss authorities wish and need them”, the French foreign ministry added.
Three of the Italian survivors of the blaze have been flown to a specialised burns unit in Milan, while others were in a condition too precarious to be moved.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken with Swiss President Guy Parmelin on Thursday to express France’s solidarity.
“The toll is devastating. Our thoughts are with the families,” Macron wrote on X.
French authorities have said nine of their nationals are among the injured. Eight more were still missing as of late on Thursday. Six Italians are unaccounted for, while 13 have been hospitalised with injuries, Cornado has said. An Australian has also been identified by the country’s authorities as among the wounded.
Contributions from Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Berlin, Adrienne Klasa in Paris and Amy Kazmin in Rome