The first four victims of a Swiss bar fire have been identified as two women, aged 16 and 21, and two men, aged 16 and 18.
The four victims are the first to be identified by police following the New Year’s Eve blaze inside the Le Constellation, located in the Alpine town of Crans-Montana, in the Valais canton, which killed at least 40 people and injured 119 others.
Further details including their names have not yet been released, but police said their bodies have now been returned to their families.
Most of the injuries, many of them serious, occurred when the blaze swept through the crowded bar in the early hours of Thursday.
Swiss officials described the blaze as a likely flashover, meaning that it triggered the release of combustible gases that can ignite violently.
Much suspicion has already focussed on the dimpled foam acoustic insulation which covered the ceiling of the basement bar and appeared to ignite from a sparkler held aloft on a Champagne bottle, then spread with terrifying ferocity.
Witnesses described the ensuing panic as revellerts tried to escape from the nightclub area in the basement, up a flight of stairs and through a narrow door, causing a crowd surge.
Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica, 40, the French couple who own the bar could face manslaughter charges over the tragedy if their safety standards or fire precautions were found to be lacking, Swiss authorities have said.
Footage shows the deadly blaze inside the Le Constellation, located in the Alpine town of Crans-Montana, in the Valais canton, which killed at least 40 people and injured 119 others
Footage from the evening shows a brave reveller trying to put out the first flames as they spread across the wooden ceiling of the cramped basement bar in south-west Switzerland
Despite his efforts, the blaze would soon engulf the crowded basement, travel up the narrow wooden stairs and set off explosions so deafening that residents feared a terror attack
The Morettis, speaking publicly for the first time on Friday, insisted that all laws and regulations had been followed and claimed that the bar had been checked by safety inspectors three times in the last 10 years.
‘Everything was done according to the regulations,’ Jacques Moretti, 49, told the La Tribune de Genève newspaper. ‘We can neither sleep nor eat. We are not well’.
He denied reports that the stairs leading from the basement where the fire started to the main exit were too narrow or that non fire-retardant materials were used in furnishings or soundproofing foam on the ceiling.
‘We will do everything in our power to help clarify the causes. We are doing everything in our power. Our lawyers are also involved.’
