Swiss face painful task of identifying victims of deadly bar fire

By Dave Graham and Emma Farge

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Investigators on Friday set about the painful task of identifying the burned bodies of a blaze that engulfed a crowded bar and killed around 40 people at a New Year's Eve party in the upscale Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.

So severe were the burns suffered by the mostly young crowd of revellers in the Le Constellation bar that Swiss officials said it could take days before they name all the victims of the fire that also injured well over 100 people, many of them seriously.

Parents of missing youths issued pleas for news of their loved ones as foreign embassies scrambled to work out if their nationals were among those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to befall modern Switzerland.

"The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies," Crans-Montana's mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference on Thursday evening. This, he said, could take days.

Mathias Reynard, head of government of the canton of Valais, said experts were using dental 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 percent sure," he said.

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

Australia has also said one of its nationals was injured.

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

All bar five of the 112 injured had been identified now, Cornado said. Six Italians are still missing and 13 hospitalised, he added. Three Italians were repatriated on Thursday and three more will follow on Friday, he said.

Authorities have warned that naming the victims or establishing a definitive death toll would take time because many of the bodies were badly burned.

CAUSE UNDER INVESTIGATION

What caused the blaze was unclear. Swiss authorities said it appeared to be an accident rather than an attack.

Some accounts from survivors and footage broadcast on social media suggested that the ceiling of the bar's basement may have caught fire when sparkling candles got too close.

Residents of Crans-Montana, which has the distinction of being not only a popular draw for skiers, but also golfers, were stunned by the inferno. Many knew victims and some said they were lucky not to have been there themselves.

Hundreds of people stood in silence near the scene as they came to pay their respects to the victims on Thursday night. Switzerland has also ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast for five days as a sign of mourning.

"You think you're safe here but this can happen anywhere. They were people like us," said Piermarco Pani, an 18-year-old who, like many others in the town, knew the bar well.

Dozens of people left flowers or lit candles on a makeshift altar at the top of the road leading to the bar which police had cordoned off. Some cried, others quietly hugged one another.

Behind the cordon, the bodies of some victims still lay in the bar, police said, as they pledged to work around the clock to identify everyone who succumbed to the blaze.

Kean Sarbach, 17, said he had spoken to four people who escaped from the bar, some with burns, and that they had told him the flames had spread very quickly.

Elisa Sousa, 17, said she was meant to be there but ended up spending the evening at a family gathering instead.

"And honestly, I'll need to thank my mother a hundred times for not letting me go," she said at the vigil for the victims. "Because God knows where I'd be now." 

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Christine ChenEditing by Alistair Bell and Raju Gopalakrishnan)