Dozens of young partygoers injured in a New Year's Eve bar fire in Switzerland have been transferred to specialist burn units across Europe as they fought for their lives after being hit by the devastating blaze, which has killed at least 40.
Initial findings showed the fire that spread among the mostly young crowd of revellers in Le Constellation bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana was likely caused by sparkler candles being carried too close to the ceiling, the local prosecutor said.
Many of the injured were in their teens to mid-20s, police said.
Meanwhile, investigators focused on the painful task of identifying the burned bodies, warning that this process was very sensitive and would take time.
So severe were the burns that Swiss officials said it could take days before they name all those killed in the fire.
The official toll is 40 dead while 119 have been injured, many of them very seriously.
Those numbers are not final, officials said.
"Many of those injured are still fighting for their lives today," Valais area chief Mathias Reynard told a news conference.
About 50 of the injured have been, or will be, transferred to burn units in hospitals elsewhere, he said.
Of the injured, 113 have been identified, 71 of whom are Swiss, 14 French, 11 Italian, four Serbian, one Bosnian, one Belgian, one Polish, one Portuguese and one Luxembourger, police chief Frederic Gisler told the same news conference.
The nationalities of 14 injured people were still unclear.
Australia has also said one of its citizens was injured.
Initial investigations suggest that the fire which tore through the Swiss ski resort bar started when "fountain candles" attached to champagne bottles were carried aloft too close to the ceiling, local prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said.
"Everything suggests that the fire started from the burning candles or 'Bengal lights' that had been attached to champagne bottles," she told the news conference, adding that while this hypothesis was likely it was not yet confirmed.
"From there, a rapid, very rapid and widespread conflagration ensued."
The candles, which give off a stream of upward-shooting sparks, were the same type that is commonly available for parties, officials said.
The investigation was also checking whether the ceiling's insulation foam was to blame for the rapid spread of the fire, Pilloud said.
Further investigations will show if anyone needs to be held criminally liable for negligence, she added.
Emanuele Galeppini, a 16-year-old Italian international golfer who lived in Dubai, was the first victim to be identified publicly.
Parents and friends of missing youths issued pleas for news of their loved ones as foreign embassies scrambled to work out if their citizens were among those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to befall modern Switzerland.
Laetitia Brodard-Sitre, the mother of 16-year-old Arthur, was looking for information near the site of the blaze.
"We are together, we are in shock, we take each other in our arms and we cry. We try to give each other hope," she said of her relatives and others of those missing.
Marco, a 20-year-old from Milan, told Reuters outside the Constellation bar that twenty of his friends were missing.
"Some of them are injured, in bad condition. Some of them are completely safe. And some of our friends, we don't have any news. They told us they never found them," he said.
"Nobody can help us find our friends."
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who was in Switzerland, said that 13 Italians were in hospital and six registered as missing.
France's embassy to Switzerland said eight French citizens were unaccounted for while another nine had been injured and were receiving care.
Visitors and residents of Crans-Montana, which is a popular draw not only for skiers but also golfers, were stunned by the inferno.
Dozens of people left flowers or lit candles on a makeshift altar at the top of the road leading to the bar which police had cordoned off.
Some cried, others quietly hugged one another.
"It could have been us," Emma, an 18-year-old from Geneva, said outside the cordoned-off bar.
"There was an enormous queue so we decided not to go in," she said.
"I see those missing and it's all people our age."
with AP
