A sparkler attached to a champagne bottle is believed to have caused the New Year’s Eve fire in Switzerland, which killed at least 47 people.
Footage from the basement of Le Constellation in Crans-Montana, a winter resort in the Valais region, shows waitresses bringing alcohol bottles with lit sparklers moments before flames engulfed the building.
While an investigation has not yet revealed the cause of one of the worst tragedies in the country’s history, some survivors blamed it on the sparklers.
Axel Clavier, who escaped the fire by forcing one of the windows open with a table, said there were ‘waitresses with champagne bottles and sparklers.’
The 16-year-old, whose friend was killed in the inferno, added: ‘They got too close to the ceiling, and suddenly it all caught fire.’
He also told AP that ‘two or three’ of his friends remain missing hours after the disaster.
Two women told BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle, also in a bottle.
They said the flames quickly spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, leading to a crowd surge.
People frantically tried to escape from the basement up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.
Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to flee the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside.
The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames and likened what he witnessed to a horror movie as he watched from across the street.
Up to 100 are currently in critical condition and still fighting for their lives in hospital, Stéphane Ganzer, Valais state councillor, told RTL.
‘Of the 100 or so people hospitalized, many are not identified,’ she added.
Most injuries, many of them serious, occurred when flames swept through the crowded bar less than two hours after midnight.
Foreign governments have been calling around to establish whether their citizens are among the dead, as Swiss authorities struggle to identify the bodies due to the severity of their burns.
Investigators are saying it could take days before they name all the victims and that they will have to resort to DNA and dental records.
Crans-Montana’s mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference: ‘The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies.’
Mathias Reynard, head of government of the canton of Valais, said experts were using dental and DNA samples for the task.
‘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.
Italy and France are among the countries that have confirmed that some of their nationals are missing and Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani will visit Crans-Montana today.
One of those missing was Giovanni Tamburi, whose mother Carla Masielli issued an appeal for any news about her son and asked the media to show his photo in hopes of identifying him.
‘We have called all the hospitals but they don’t give me any news. We don’t know if he’s among the dead,’ she said.
‘We don’t know if he’s among the missing. They don’t tell us anything!’
Australia has also said one of its nationals was injured.
Swiss officials have said around 40 people were killed but Italy has put the death toll at 47, based on information from Swiss authorities.
All bar five of the 112 injured had been identified now, Cornado said. Six Italians are still missing and 13 hospitalised, he added.
Three Italians were repatriated on Thursday and three more will follow today.
Authorities have warned that naming the victims or even establishing a definitive death toll would take time because many of the bodies were badly burned.
People gathered outside the Constellation Bar last night, as the communitycomes to terms with the shock of what unfolded at the venue.
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