Another 16 victims, including four Swiss girls ranging from 14 to 18 years old, have been positively identified in the fire that erupted at a New Year’s party in Switzerland last week, leaving less than half of the victims left to identify.
Valais canton police are still working to identify all of the 40 people who died at the Le Constellation bar in the Swiss Alps on Thursday night. Police are working with the Institute of Forensic Medicine and the country’s disaster victim identification protocol to return the victims to their loved ones.
The victims also include six Swiss males ranging from 16 years old to 31, police said.
Two Italian 16-year-olds, an Italian-Emirati who was also 16, an 18-year-old Romanian and an 18-year-old Turkish national were among the identified victims. The oldest of the newly identified victims was a 39-year-old from France, according to police.
“This means that 24 victims have now been identified,” police said Sunday.
The deadly blaze that broke out in the town of Crans-Montana appears to have been caused by sparklers on top of Champagne bottles at the bar. Authorities believe the sparklers were too close to the bar’s ceiling, which had a soundproof lining that ignited.
Videos from that night show the flames spreading as some attempted to extinguish the fire and others ran out in a panic.
Ebenezer Mehari, 17, told NBC News that he lost four of his friends in the fire. He was blinded by the thick smoke that enveloped the club but was pulled to safety by a stranger.
Mehari, who has lived in the area for 15 years, described the scene as “hell.”
“Somebody was dying in front of me and I couldn’t do anything,” he said. “Her face was so burned it was red.”
An investigation has been opened into the managers of the bar, who are suspected of negligent homicide, negligent bodily harm and causing fire by negligence, police said. Officials plan to look into what safety measures were in place at the time of the fire, as well as whether soundproofing material on the ceiling that is believed to have caught fire conformed with regulations.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin shared his “deepest condolences.”
“Behind these numbers are faces, names, families, destinies brutally interrupted,” Parmelin said at a press conference Thursday.
