During a news conference on Friday, prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said, “Everything suggests that the fire started with the burning candles or the ” Bengal lights” that had been attached to champagne bottles.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
These “went too far” to the ceiling, they said. A quick, very quick, and widespread conflagration followed, Pilloud told reporters.
In the blaze that broke out at the crowded Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, in the Swiss Alps town of Crans-Montana, on Thursday morning, at least 40 people were killed and 119 others were hurt.
Residents, tourists, and survivors are still frantically looking for clues about their loved ones who have been missing due to the deadly fire.
According to Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, who was reporting from Crans-Montana on Friday afternoon, people have been lighting candles and flowers at a victims’ memorial.
Hull described the town as a “place of collective grief and mourning” and said, “There is] real sadness on the face of so many people.”
You can see white plastic sheeting surrounding Le Constellation bar just down the road, he said, obscuring the work of forensic investigators who are identifying around 40 bodies.
Swiss officials announced on Friday that 113 of the 119 fire-injured people had been identified as a result of the agonizing wait for information for families.
According to Frederic Gisler, the police chief in the Valais region where Crans-Montana is located, there were 14 French nationals, 11 Italians, and four Serbian nationals.
Additionally, according to authorities, about 50 people were being treated in specialized burn units in other European nations or were being transferred there.
“Like a small village,” the phrase says.
Meanwhile, a photo of someone who is still missing is flooding into an Instagram account, with their friends and family pleading for information about the missing’ whereabouts.
Dejan Bajic, a 56-year-old Geneva visitor who has visited the resort for decades, described the atmosphere as “heavy.”
Everyone knows someone who has known someone who has been affected, according to the statement in “a small village.”
Marco, a 20-year-old Italian boy, reported missing 20 of his friends to the Reuters news agency outside Le Constellation.
“Some of them are hurt and in poor condition. Some of them are unbrokenly safe. We don’t have any news for some of our friends, either. They claimed they had never discovered them, he claimed. No one can assist us in finding our friends.
Because many of the bodies were severely burned, authorities have warned that it would take time to name the victims or determine the death toll.
The canton of Valais’s head of government, Mathias Reynard, said, “All this work needs to be done because the information is so terrible and sensitive that nothing can be told to the families until we are 100% certain.”
He continued, “Experts were identifying the victims using DNA and dental samples.”
The bar’s owners have been interrogated as part of the ongoing investigation into the cause of the fire, according to Pilloud, the prosecutor, who also stated on Friday.
The investigation will concentrate on previous bar renovations, the materials used, the availability of adequate fire extinguishing systems and escape routes, as well as the number of people who were present at the time the fire started.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply