Scrutiny is intensifying over safety measures at a Swiss bar that was engulfed in flames during a New Year’s party, killing at least 40 people, as prosecutors said the fire probably started when pyrotechnic candles were held too close to the ceiling.
Witnesses reported seeing staff at Le Constellation bar carrying so-called fountain candles atop champagne bottles, and questions were also raised about a foam material used to protect the basement ceiling where attendees were dancing.
Béatrice Pilloud, attorney general of Valais, the canton that is home to the bar at the upscale Crans-Montana ski resort, said the available indications were that the fire started because the candles got too close to the ceiling.
“From there, a very rapid, very rapid, widespread fire ensued,” she said Friday afternoon.
Further investigation will determine whether anyone can be held criminally responsible for the fire, Pilloud said.
Police arrived quickly on the scene, residents said, but the fire burned the victims so badly that investigators estimated it would take several days to identify the bodies.
To date, authorities have identified only one teenage Italian golfer, Emanuele Galeppini. According to two people close to the investigation, some of the victims could be under 16 years old.
Locals said the bar was popular with young people and the Swiss government said many of those killed were likely young people. Beer and wine can be consumed from the age of 16 in Switzerland.
One of the bar’s owners, Jacques Moretti, told Geneva’s Tribune newspaper that Le Constellation had been inspected three times in 10 years and that everything was done according to the rules. Reuters was not immediately able to contact the bar’s owners for comment.
Stéphane Ganzer, Valais’ security chief, said the investigation would determine whether the bar had passed its annual building inspections, but that the city had not raised concerns or reported any defects to the canton.
Grieving residents continued to pay their respects to fire victims Friday, laying flowers and tributes nearby, even as police began reopening the area around the isolated bar in the heart of the wealthy mountain town.
One of them, Ashley Hauri, 23, said that shortly before the fire, she was preparing to go to Constellation to meet friends. In the end, she decided not to go.
Six of her former colleagues, aged between 20 and 40, were inside when the fire broke out, she said. Two of them ended up in the hospital; the other four are still missing.
“I was really shocked,” said Hauri, who immediately tried to contact her friends. “But I had no answers and I was really scared and panicked because I wanted to do something.”
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