CRANS MONTANA: Teenagers Eleonore and Elisa began the year with a frantic search for friends missing since a deadly fire tore through a bar in a neighboring town in Switzerland.
“Are they okay? Are they just at the hospital?” says one of the 17-year-olds.
They haven’t been heard from since a fire destroyed a New Year’s celebration in the luxurious resort town of Crans Montana, turning what should have been a night of revelry into a global tragedy.
Police estimate that about 40 people have been killed and about 115 injured, many of them young visitors to the Swiss Alps.
Authorities began the arduous process of identifying the victims, but as some of the bodies were badly burned, police warned that the process could take days or even weeks.
Family and friends have been struggling to find their loved ones, with many photos circulating on social media.
“We’re trying to contact them; some of their locations are still shown here,” said one of the Valais teens, nodding toward the bar now protected by opaque white tarps and behind a wall of temporary barriers.
“We took a lot of photos [and] We put them on Instagram, Facebook, every social media possible to try to find them,” Eleonore said.
“But there is nothing. There is no response. We called the parents. Nothing. Not even the parents know,” he added.
They managed to receive the news that a friend was in a coma in a hospital in the city of Lausanne.
According to a Swiss news agency, more than 30 victims were taken to hospitals with specialized burn units in Zurich and Lausanne, and six were transferred to Geneva.
There is no official estimate of those missing or the number of people in the Le Constellation bar that night.
The Italian ambassador, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, said AFP that five of the injured have not yet been identified.
A few hundred meters from the remains of the burned bar, the nearby convention center has been converted into a crisis unit.
Away from the press and guarded by the police, the victims’ relatives are received and offered assistance by authorities, diplomats and chaplains.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said the support offered would be “long-lasting.”
Nathan, a 19-year-old who was at the bar just before it caught fire, said AFP still waiting to wake up from the “nightmare”.
“It feels like… I’ll wake up tomorrow and have all my loved ones back who sadly died in this incident,” he said.
“Normally a new year is full of happiness, but unfortunately this has happened.”
