The death toll in the dramatic fire at the Le Constellation bar, located in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, rose to 40 people this Friday, according to the police chief of the canton of Valais. Frédéric Gisler. Another 119 were seriously injured due to the explosion, which occurred during the New Year’s celebration.
La fiscal general, Béatrice Pilloudsuspects that the fire started as a result of the contact of the flares “placed in the champagne bottles” with the roof of the premises, but pointed out that the public ministry continues to consider “several alternative hypotheses.”
The Swiss authorities ask for discretion. The task of identifying the victims will take several weeks. The bodies were charred, and there were many wounded who, in the words of the president of the cantonal government of Valais, Mathias Reynard“they are still fighting for their lives.”
The average age is around 20 years, according to Eric Bonvingeneral director of the Sion regional hospital, which received dozens of victims. The majority are Swiss. Eight of the missing and nine of the injured have French passports. The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajaniconfirmed from the town of Crans-Montana that thirteen injured and at least six of the missing are transalpine.
The first confirmed fatality is Emanuele Galeppinia promising 17-year-old Genoese golfer – he is ranked 2,440th in the ranking – who lived in Dubai and who in April of last year won the prestigious Omega Dubai Creek Amateur. The Italian Golf Federation issued a statement to mourn the loss of this “young athlete who carried with him passion and genuine values.”
“It was like putting your hand on a blowtorch”: everything that went wrong in the Swiss bar fire with 47 dead, according to a firefighter
Another young Italian who is among the missing is Giovanni Tamburi16 years old. “We are calling all the hospitals, but no one knows anything, also because those who arrive are in very bad conditions. Help me find my son,” said his mother, a resident of Bologna, in statements reported by the newspaper. The Republic.
Tamburi had spent New Year’s Eve with his father in Switzerland. He decided to go out with his friends to the Le Constellation bar. “My cell phone was out of battery, a friend told me that they fled after the fire started, but then he lost sight of it,” laments his mother, who says that the young man was wearing “a little gold chain with the image of the Virgin” around his neck.
Relatives and friends of the victims crowd into the Le Régent conference center in Crans-Montana. A ten-minute walk separates you from Le Constellation. It is the operational center of the Swiss authorities, overwhelmed by the flood of cases.
“My friend is desperate, she no longer knows where her son is, they asked her to provide details about his dental arch, they will do a DNA test,” Antonella, a woman from Milan, told the Italian press. “They don’t tell us anything. We cling to the hope that our daughter is among the unidentified wounded, but they can’t tell us anything,” said the parents of Chiara, another 16-year-old Milanese girl.
Facade of Le Constellation, the Crans Montana bar where the tragedy occurred.
Reuters
On the tragic night some heroes appeared. It is the case of Paolo Campoloa Swiss-Italian financial analyst. In the middle of the night, Campolo received a message from her 17-year-old daughter Paolina, in which she told her that her boyfriend and his friends had been trapped in the Le Constellation firebox. Campolo grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran towards the premises from his home in Crans-Montana. Just over 50 meters away.
The 55-year-old man didn’t think twice and entered. “I didn’t think about the pain, the smoke, the danger. I took the boys out with my own hands. One after another. They were alive but injured, many of them seriously,” he told the French newspaper. 20 Minutes from the Sion hospital, oxygen mask incorporated, where he remains admitted for smoke inhalation. “We couldn’t go very far inside, maybe a meter or two, to grab people and take them outside.”
“The fire spread very quickly and violently, it lasted only a few minutes. Then it stopped. But there was no oxygen inside and that caused the massacre,” he explains. His testimony is harsh. “The lucid desperation of those who know they are going to die. Burned people looking at you and asking you not to leave them. It’s something you don’t forget.”
Campolo was not alone. your son Gianni Campoloa 19-year-old engineering student, also participated in the rescue efforts. “I will never be able to see anything worse than that night. There were people lying on the ground, shirtless, disfigured, burned,” he says. “There were no faces left, no hair. People were black, their clothes were melting onto their skin.”
When Gianni arrived at Le Constellation the fire had just devoured the interior of the premises. There were still no firefighters or ambulances. “The emergency services arrived quite quickly, but they came from afar. The ambulances took a long time,” the boy explains to 20 Minutes.