CRANS MONTANA: Teenagers Eléonore and Elisa began the year with a frantic search for their friends who have been missing since a deadly fire ravaged a bar in a neighboring Swiss town.
“Are they okay? Are they just in the hospital?” » said one of the 17-year-olds.
They haven’t been heard from since a fire ravaged a New Year’s celebration in the luxury resort of Crans Montana, turning what should have been a night of rejoicing into a tragedy on a global scale.
Police estimate that around 40 people were killed and around 115 injured, many of them young visitors to the Swiss Alps.
Authorities have begun the arduous process of identifying victims, but with some bodies badly burned, police have warned the process could take days or even weeks.
Relatives and friends struggled to find their loved ones, with numerous photos circulating on social media.
“We tried to contact them, some of their locations are still visible here,” says one of the Valais teenagers, pointing to the bar now protected by opaque white tarpaulins and behind a wall of temporary barriers.
“We took lots of photos [and] we put them on Instagram, Facebook, all possible social networks to try to find them,” explained Éléonore.
“But there is nothing. No answer. We called the parents. Nothing. Even the parents don’t know,” she added.
They managed to learn that a friend was in a coma in a hospital in the city of Lausanne.
More than 30 victims were transported to hospitals with specialized burn units in Zurich and Lausanne, and six were taken to Geneva, according to a Swiss news agency.
There is no official estimate of the missing or the staff at the Constellation bar that evening.
Italian Ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornado said AFP that five of the injured have not yet been identified.
A few hundred meters from the remains of the burned bar, the neighboring convention center has been transformed into a crisis unit.
Away from the press and guarded by the police, the families of the victims are welcomed and offered help by the authorities, diplomats and chaplains.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said the proposed support would be “long-lasting”.
Nathan, a 19-year-old who was in the bar just before it caught fire, said AFP he still expects to wake up from the “nightmare”.
“I feel like…I’m going to wake up tomorrow and get all my loved ones who unfortunately died in this incident,” he said.
“Normally a new year is full of happiness, but unfortunately this happened.”
