Crans-Montana fire survivors treated in burns units across Europe | Crans-Montana fire

Survivors of the catastrophic bar fire in the upmarket Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana are being cared for in special burns units across Europe, while investigators say many of the dead were so badly burned that it could take days or weeks to identify them.

About 40 people were killed and 115 injured when the blaze ripped through a New Year’s Eve celebration in the packed Constellation bar and basement nightclub.

Crans-Montana’s mayor, Nicolas Féraud, said: “The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies.”

The Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, called the fire “a calamity of unprecedented, terrifying proportions” as he described the devastating toll. “Behind these figures are faces, names, families, lives brutally cut short, completely interrupted or for ever changed,” Parmelin said at a news conference.

So severe were the victims’ burns that Swiss officials said identification work was particularly gruelling. Parents of missing youths issued pleas for news of their loved ones and foreign embassies scrambled to work out if their nationals were among those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to strike modern Switzerland.

Mathias Reynard, the head of government of the canton of Valais, said experts were using dental records 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% sure,” he said.

Despite having one of the world’s most advanced medical systems, Switzerland’s regional clinics quickly reached capacity in the hours after the blaze. More than 30 people were taken to hospitals with specialised burns units in Zurich and Lausanne and six were taken to Geneva, according to a Swiss news agency.

Many more of the injured were transported to other countries including Belgium, France and Germany, while the EU said it had been in contact with Swiss authorities about providing medical assistance.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on X he had offered his country’s help as clinics in Paris and Lyon took in patients, while Sweden and North Macedonia also said they had hospital beds available.

Italy and France are among the countries that have said some of their nationals are missing and Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, said the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, would visit Crans-Montana on Friday.

Swiss officials have said about 40 people were killed but Italy has put the death toll at 47, based on information from Swiss authorities.

Stéphane Ganzer, a regional health and safety official, said on Friday he was “surprised” by the latter figure. “This is not the same number that we have,” he told RTL radio.

Cornado said all but five of the injured had now been identified. Six Italians are still missing and 13 hospitalised. Three Italians were repatriated on Thursday and three more will follow on Friday, he said.

The French foreign ministry said nine French citizens were among the injured and eight others remained unaccounted for. Australia has said one of its nationals was injured.

Relatives and friends have been scrambling to find their loved ones, using social media to circulate photos of the missing.

Paulo Martins, a French citizen who has lived in the area around Crans-Montana for 24 years, said his son and his girlfriend narrowly missed being in the bar at the time of the fire. “When he came home he was really in shock,” Martins told Agence France-Presse.

A friend of his 17-year-old son had been transferred for treatment in Germany with his body 30% covered in burns, Martins said.

Eleonore, 17, started the year with a frantic search for friends who have been missing since the fire. Standing outside the bar, now shielded by white tarpaulins and a wall of temporary barriers, she said she had not heard from them since New Year’s Eve.

“We took loads of photos [and] we put them on Instagram, Facebook, every social network possible to try to find them,” she told AFP. “But there’s nothing. No response. We called the parents. Nothing. Even the parents don’t know.”

She and a friend managed to get news that one friend was in a coma in a hospital in Lausanne.

The director of the city’s university hospital, Claire Charmet, said it was treating 22 badly burned patients, most ranging in age from 16 to 26.

“Patients are being stabilised and transferred to the operating theatre or to specialised beds,” she told the local newspaper 24 heures on Thursday. “We need to be aware that the treatment will be long and intense, lasting several weeks or even months.”

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report.