DISTRAUGHT families are desperately searching for their children who are still missing after a deadly blaze ripped through a Swiss ski resort nightclub.
Authorities have confirmed teenagers are among the 47 dead and 115 injured after the horror blaze erupted at a packed tourist bar in Crans-Montana, Valais.
It’s thought more than 200 young people celebrating the New Year were crammed into Le Constellation, a ritzy bar at the popular ski resort, when the “flashover” inferno broke out.
Hundreds of people escaped up a set of narrow stairs, while others smashed windows with furniture to escape, suffering horrific burns in the process.
Terrified New Year’s Eve revellers were “screaming and running” for their lives the inferno scorched the venue, burning alive many people trapped inside.
Survivors, as young as 15, have been taken to hospitals across Switzerland and abroad to France, Germany and Belgium.
Valais hospital activated its disaster plan, receiving 60 of the injured, many with third degree burns.
A helpline for victims and their families has been set up to try manage the flow of information.
The mother of 16-year-old Giovanni Tamburi from Bologna is one of many parents appealing for information on her son’s wellbeing.
“We’re calling all the hospitals, but nobody knows anything, especially since the patients are in terrible condition,” she told La Repubblica.
Friends and relatives have taken to social media to desperately find answers about what happened to their loved ones, amid the chaos of the horrific tragedy.
One Facebook post read: “My 15-year-old sister is missing. We haven’t had any news since the fire at the bar in Crans-Montana.”
Another wrote of a loved one: “If you saw him after 1.30 am or know where he was taken, please contact me. Three of his friends are also missing.”
Experts are using dental and DNA records to try identify the deceased, but the severity of the burns is delaying identification, a European official has said.
Eight French nationals and six Italians are missing and foreign governments are reportedly calling around frantically to establish if their citizens are among the dead.
The first injured teen to be identified is FC Metz youth footballer player Tahirys Dos Santos.
The 19-year-old was “severely burned”, the football club said, and is now receiving treatment in Germany.
It comes as around 400 people come together to mourn the victims of the horrific blaze on Thursday evening.
A church service in Crans-Montana was held to honour the victims, and later hundreds more gathered silently in the icy night to lay flowers and light candles near the site of the tragedy.
Many of those who stood, motionless, overlooking the scene of the tragedy, knew people who remain unaccounted for, or were badly injured.
People spoke in whispers, if at all. The only sound came from a generator humming by the temporary white tents erected outside the bar.
“I wasn’t there myself, but I had many friends and relatives who were,” said one young mourner, who gave his surname as Orosstevic.
“Some died, others are in the hospital. About 10,” he told AFP.
“They’re mostly friends of my parents, but I know them very well.”
Orosstevic said he had bought flowers to lay down “as a small tribute”.
Nearby, some groups of friends hugged, sobbing, distraught.
Fathers rested a guiding arm around young sons. Youngsters embraced as they saw friends. People wept, hugged and held hands.
“My son could very well have been in there. He wasn’t far away,” Paulo Martins, a French citizen who has lived in the area for 24 years, told AFP.
“He was with his girlfriend; they were supposed to go in. And in the end, they didn’t make it there,” he said.
“When he came home, he was really in shock.”
A friend of his 17-year-old son has been transferred for treatment in Germany, with his body 30 percent covered in burns.
Mourners laid tributes on a table temporarily put up at the entrance of the road leading down to the bar, which was blocked from view by white screens.
Two police officers stood guard at the cordon.
A couple of young women stood for a long time holding a bunch of flowers, mustering the courage to venture through the crowd towards the table.
“There are dead and injured, and we have someone close to us who is still missing. We have no news of them,” said one of the women, who did not want to be identified.
After laying their flowers, they walked away, arm in arm.
“They were young people, and people we know,” said another woman, who declined to give her name.
Asked whether she knew what happened to them, she said: “Some, no. Some, we’re still waiting.”
The emergency units at Valais hospitals quickly filled up, and many of the injured were transported across Switzerland and neighbouring countries.
More than 30 victims were taken to hospitals with specialised burns units in Zurich and Lausanne, and six were taken to Geneva, Switzerland’s Keystone-ATS news agency reported.
The European Union said it has been in contact with Swiss authorities about providing medical assistance, while French President Emmanuel Macron said some of the injured were already being cared for in French hospitals.
Swiss authorities said they were racing to identify the victims, but warned the process “could take several days, even weeks”.