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Swiss police. Photo: AFP (file)
CRANS-MONTANA:
The owner of a bar in a Swiss ski resort devastated by a deadly fire during New Year’s celebrations insisted to Swiss media on Friday that safety rules had been followed.
Jacques Moretti, a Frenchman who runs the bar Le Constellation with his wife Jessica, told the PAkGazette de Geneve newspaper that the establishment had faced “three inspections in ten years.” “Everything was done according to the rules,” he said.
The question of whether safety regulations were respected has arisen since the devastating fire broke out in the basement of the bar, which killed 40 people and injured 119, according to the report provided by the police on Friday.
Le Constellation, located on the ground floor of a residential building, has a capacity for 300 people, plus another 40 people on its terrace, according to the Crans-Montana website.
Several witnesses stated that the event space in the establishment’s basement, where the fire started, was connected to the ground floor only by a staircase, which some described as “narrow.”
