(Adnkronos) – More than 40 dead, over 100 injured. It’s a massacre of young people in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, where the New Year’s Eve party turned into a fiery inferno in the devastating fire inside the Le Constellation bar.
While authorities have ruled out arson and are investigating compliance with safety regulations and the presence of emergency exits, some videos shot by survivors inside the venue on the night of the tragedy seem to shed further light on the origin of the blaze, in which some young Italians were also seriously injured, while others are still missing.
As the images captured in the videos immediately preceding the tragedy seem to tell, witnesses also reported that the flames spread in a few seconds, after one of the sparkling candles applied to champagne bottles during a toast touched the ceiling of the venue, which was covered in highly flammable sound-absorbing material, giving rise to the first flare-up that then rapidly spread.
Swiss authorities spoke of a possible flashover, an extremely dangerous phenomenon in which a localized fire suddenly turns into a generalized blaze, with very high temperatures and simultaneous ignition of the materials present. In these conditions, survival is almost impossible and the risk remains high even for rescuers. The narrow stairs and limited escape routes in the basement would therefore have done the rest, hindering evacuation during the escape of the very young.
”It looked like a horror movie”. This is how a witness, Adrien, described what he saw from outside the venue: “I saw smoke, a large and very dense white smoke” coming out of the Le Constellation bar, he told Bfmtv.
“We saw the flames after five, ten minutes and people coming out in a panic, breaking windows, suffering men and women with burnt clothes, crying, screaming, people who didn’t know if their loved ones were inside,” he continued, speaking of “parents arriving by car at full speed, worried about where their children were” and “it looked like a horror movie”.
“In a few seconds, the entire nightclub was engulfed in flames,” said Emma and Albane, who were inside the venue when the fire broke out and saw the “wooden” ceiling catch fire. “We all ran out screaming and running,” they recounted, describing ”total panic”. Having fallen during the stampede, they said that “someone broke a window to let people out” and confirmed that firefighters and police arrived within minutes.
Among the affected people are also several Italians. According to Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, “from the cross-referencing of data arriving from the Farnesina crisis unit, from the Italian embassy in Bern, from the Italian consulate in Geneva, it appears that there are 19 missing Italians and a dozen Italians hospitalized in various Swiss hospitals.” Meanwhile, the Italian ambassador to Bern, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, speaks of 6 missing, specifying that he has not yet received the official list from the Swiss authorities.
“There is a lot of confusion,” Tajani continued, explaining that “for the moment, 12 Italians have been identified. Of the injured, three have been transferred to Italy by helicopter and hospitalized at Niguarda hospital in Milan: two of them are minors, both 16 years old.
Italian authorities have activated a task force and a dedicated helpline to assist families and facilitate contacts and information about their compatriots. Many victims are not immediately identifiable due to severe burns, and the recognition process will take days or weeks. ”It is very difficult to identify the victims. They are completely carbonized, it will take weeks,” Tajani declared. ”Our forensic police are available to help with the identification of the bodies,” he added.
The head of the Farnesina emphasized that “it is also difficult to identify the injured,” citing, for example, the fact that “they do not have documents” or “are in intensive care or unconscious.”
