Stunned Swiss Alpine resort seeks solace together after deadly bar fire

By Dave Graham and Noemie Olive

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland, Jan 4 (Reuters) - When 51-year-old Annouk Perret came to pay her respects to the victims of the Swiss New Year bar fire that killed at least 40 people in the ski resort of Crans-Montana, she knew that she too could have been one of the parents mourning a lost child.

Authorities say most of the victims of the blaze that ripped through the Le Constellation bar were young people in a country renowned for orderliness and unaccustomed to mass fatalities.

Laying flowers with her son Emile and her tearful mother-in-law Carmen outside the now cordoned-off popular bar, Perret recalled how her 17-year-old daughter wanted to go in too that night - but did not because of the long queue outside.

Instead, she said her daughter went to a bar opposite with friends. When flames engulfing the bar sparked a blast, they first assumed it was fireworks; when police quickly arrived, the group feared it was gunfire and fled, Perret said.

Afterwards, the family learned that another friend of her daughter decided to enter "Le Constellation" just before the fire and lost her life there, Perret told Reuters.

"We've come today because we need to be here. We need to see the place where it happened," she said. "(She) could have been dead, but is not. But others are dead."

Perret spoke just as Swiss authorities were announcing they had identified four more victims aged 16-21, without naming them. Very few of the dead have so far been identified, with the severity of burns making identification hard.

That will be a tough process for Crans-Montana, she said, a wealthy town of over 10,000 people with a popular golf course.

Prosecutors on Saturday said the two people who ran the bar are now under investigation suspected of crimes including homicide by negligence.

'PEOPLE SCREAMING'

Damiano Vizioli, a 24-year-old living in neighbouring Sion, was in Le Constellation on New Year's Eve but had gone outside to smoke a cigarette when the bar suddenly burst into flames.

He was stunned to see people with their clothes on fire scrambling to escape from the burning bar, he said. The distressing scenes he witnessed have stayed with him.

"I'm not sleeping well because I can hear the people screaming," said Vizioli, who went back to the bar desperate for news of a friend working there whom he has not heard from since.

The blaze has hit many nationalities, with the injured and missing coming from all corners of Europe and as far afield as Australia. But most of the tally are Swiss.

Mutual support was crucial for coping, Perret said.

"Now we call each other, each parents, because everybody has children who were in there or almost were there, or didn't go... and everybody's completely shaken," she said.

Reporters from all around Europe rushed to get to the Alpine retreat as images of the inferno began circulating online.

Eric Schmid, a 63-year-old local businessman, said he had received messages from all over the world since the news broke.

"The scar will be quite deep, and I think it'll take time to heal," he said. But the Swiss are resilient, he added.

"We are mountain people. We will survive, of course, but that's not the most important thing," he said. "It's more about the kids and all these people who have been affected. But the messages and signs of solidarity are super important."

Among those who expressed gratitude for the solidarity is Pierre Pralong, an 89-year-old anxiously awaiting word of his missing granddaughter Emilie, 22, who went to the bar. The uncertainty had caused the family great suffering, he said.

But even as hopes dwindle, faith in God was helping him as he recalled Emilie's joyful nature. "I have a feeling she's probably passed on into the next life," Pralong said.

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Noemie Olive; editing by Diane Craft)