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CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Sixteen-year-old Arthur Brodard went to the Le Constellation bar with friends to celebrate the New Year. Long after a devastating fire, his mother still held out hope he might be one of the several injured people who remained unidentified after one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Those people gave a glimmer of hope for families whose loved ones were missing in the aftermath of Thursday’s fire at the Alpine ski resort of Crans-Montana that killed 40 people and injured more than 100 others.
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“I’m looking everywhere. The body of my son is somewhere,” Laetitia Brodard, from Lausanne, Switzerland, told reporters Friday evening. “I want to know where my child is and be by his side. Wherever that may be, be it in the intensive care unit or the morgue.”
On Saturday, she told French broadcaster BFM TV that “we, parents, are starting to get tired … and anger is starting to rise.”
Brodard said she received a message from her son just after midnight saying “Happy New Year, mom, I love you,” and she replied “Happy New Year, big guy, have a good time.” That was their last contact.
The severity of the burns has made it difficult to identify both injured and deceased, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. In some cases, wallets and any identification documents inside were turned to ash in the flames. An Instagram account has filled up with photos of people who were unaccounted for, and friends and relatives begged for tips about their whereabouts.
Flowers are placed in front of the sealed off Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year’s celebrations. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A nerve-wracking wait
On Saturday, regional police said the bodies of four victims — a boy and a girl, both aged 16, an 18-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman, all Swiss — had been identified and handed over to their families. They said the identification of other victims was pressing on, and gave no further information.
“It’s a wait that destroys people’s stability,” said Elvira Venturella, an Italian psychologist working with the families of those who were at the bar. “And the more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to accept the uncertainty, not having information.”
Swiss officials acknowledged the prolonged heartache.
“The priority today is truly placed on identification, in order to allow the families to begin their mourning,” Beatrice Pilloud, the Valais region’s attorney general, told reporters Friday during a news conference.
Swiss officials said Friday afternoon that 119 people were injured, 113 of whom had been formally identified.
On Saturday, Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told reporters he had just been briefed by local authorities that the total number of injured stood at 121, five of whom hadn’t yet been identified. He said 14 Italians were being treated in hospitals.
Cornado acknowledged that “there’s a lot of stress,” but said it was right for authorities to have a “strict procedure” and share information only when it is “accurate and 100% sure.”
Swiss police said Friday that the injured included more than 70 Swiss nationals and over 10 each from France and Italy, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland.
A stream of mourners and well-wishers bearing flowers continued to flow to makeshift memorials of bouquets and candles outside Le Constellation, some consoling one another with hugs as they shed tears. “RIP you are all our children” said one of the handwritten notes.
A man runs in the early morning in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, where a devastating fire in the Le Constellation bar left dead and injured during the New Year’s celebrations. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
‘You can’t imagine the pain I saw’
Investigators said Friday that they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited the fatal fire when they came too close to the ceiling of the bar crowded with New Year’s revelers around 1:30 a.m. Thursday.
“We were bringing people out, people were collapsing. We were doing everything we could to save them, we helped as many as we could, we saw people screaming, running,” Marc-Antoine Chavanon, 14, told The Associated Press in Crans-Montana on Friday, recounting how he rushed to the bar to help the injured. “There was one of our friends: She was struggling to get out, she was all burned. You can’t imagine the pain I saw.”
Many of the injured were in their teens to mid-20s, police said. Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.
Officials said they would also look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes. The region’s top prosecutor has warned of possible prosecutions if any criminal liability is found.
The Valais region’s top security official, Stéphane Ganzer, told SRF public radio that “such a huge accident with a fire in Switzerland means that something didn’t work — maybe the material, maybe the organization on the spot.” He added that “something didn’t work and someone made a mistake, I am sure of that.”
Nicolas Féraud, who heads the Crans-Montana municipality, told RTS radio he was “convinced” checks on the bar hadn’t been lax, the broadcaster reported.
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Dazio reported from Berlin. Associated Press journalists Geir Moulson in Berlin and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
