A devastating fire that ripped through a nightclub in the Swiss Alps has left at least 47 people dead and 115 injured, with distraught families still searching for missing teenagers as young as 14.
New Year's Eve Celebrations Turn to Tragedy
What began as New Year's Eve celebrations at the Le Constellation bar in the luxury ski resort of Crans-Montana descended into a nightmare in the early hours of Thursday morning. The inferno in the basement venue left survivors with severe third-degree burns, with Swiss officials warning the identification process could take days due to the severity of the injuries sustained by the mostly young crowd.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin described the blaze as 'one of the worst tragedies that our country has experienced', noting it had 'cut short many young lives'. Initial accounts from survivors and social media footage suggest the ceiling may have caught fire after sparklers were brought too close.
Families' Agonising Wait for News
As foreign embassies scramble to identify their nationals, families face an unbearable wait. Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, stated that all but five of the 112 injured have been identified, but Swiss authorities have yet to release a full list of victims.
The first victim to be publicly named was 17-year-old Italian teenage golfer, Emanuele Galeppini. Currently, six Italians are confirmed missing with 13 in hospital, while eight French nationals are missing and nine more are injured.
Desperate pleas for information have flooded social media. The brother of 15-year-old Greek national Alice Kallergis, a permanent resident of Switzerland, shared an appeal saying, 'We have no news.' She was last seen around 1.30am local time when the fire broke out.
Heartbreaking Searches for the Missing
A French mother named Laetitia spent over 30 hours searching hospitals for her 16-year-old son, Arthur Brodard. 'I don't know which hospital he is in. I don't know which morgue he is in,' she told BFMTV. She defended parents who allowed their teenagers to attend the celebrations, stating, 'All the parents knew where their children were.'
Two sisters, Alicia Gonset, 15, and Diana Gonset, 14, were also reported missing by their family. Separately, a French grandfather, Pierre Pralong, made a televised appeal for information about his 22-year-old granddaughter, Émilie, who was at the club with friends and has not been heard from since.
Aftermath and Ongoing Response
The scale of the tragedy has sent shockwaves through Switzerland and across Europe. The resort town of Crans-Montana, typically associated with luxury and leisure, is now the site of one of the nation's worst modern disasters. The complex identification process and the severe nature of the injuries continue to hinder official updates, prolonging the anguish for countless families awaiting definitive news about their loved ones.
