The mayor of a Swiss village, where a tragic fire claimed the lives of 40 people and left 116 others with severe burns, has confessed that the ski bar at the heart of the disaster had not undergone safety inspections for five years. The devastating incident occurred on New Year’s Day.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Crans-Montana’s Mayor Nicolas Feraud revealed that no safety evaluations had been conducted at Le Constellation bar since 2019. The bar, located in the Swiss ski resort, had become the site of an unimaginable tragedy.
“We are deeply sorry,” Mayor Feraud stated. “We were unaware that the necessary checks had not been performed.”
He continued, “We regret this oversight. We owe an explanation to the families affected, and we will accept full responsibility.”
The mayor also mentioned that the sound-proof foam installed in the bar had been deemed acceptable at the time of its installation.
Images from inside the bar reveal that the ceiling was lined with sound-proofing panels, which reportedly ignited when sparklers were held too close, leading to the catastrophic blaze.
He also said that there is a team of just five people who do ‘immense work’ and carry out checks in the area, looking after more than 10,000 buildings, including restaurants and hotels.
The local council are looking at why this happened, which will include a full audit of all venues in the area and ensure more checks are carried out, Mr Feraud said.
Crans-Montana Mayor Nicolas Feraud said that no safety inspections had been carried out since 2019 at Le Constellation bar
A photo appears to show the moment champagne sparklers set fire to material on the ceiling of the Swiss nightclub
He also said that it is ‘down to the judges’ to determine who is responsible.
Prosecutors have said that the fire that spread rapidly in the early hours of January 1 was likely caused by sparkling candles igniting the ceiling of the bar’s basement.
All sparkler candles have now been banned inside venues, said the mayor at the press conference.
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the bar managers – married couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti.
The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, according to the Valais region’s chief prosecutor.
The couple are both currently at liberty, as they assist the judicial authorities with their enquiries.
They have indicated that they will open an enquiry into ‘arson by negligence’ and ‘manslaughter by negligence’ if ‘criminal liability is established’.
Jacques and Jessica Moretti who owned the Swiss bar, Le Constellation, in Crans-Montana which caught fire New Years Eve. The pair are currently under investigation
A woman lights a candle at a makeshift memorial outside the “Le Constellation” bar, after a deadly fire and explosion during a New Year’s Eve party, in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana
In the meantime, the French couple have not been formally charged, and are free to travel.
Swiss police on Monday said they had identified all the people who were injured in the fire.
They put the total at 116, more than two-thirds still in hospital.
The injured include 68 Swiss citizens, 21 French nationals, 10 Italians, four Serbs, two Poles and one person each from Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Portugal and the Republic of Congo, according to a police statement.
There were also four dual nationals: of France and Finland, France and Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, and Italy and the Philippines.
Police said 83 of the injured were still in hospitals. They didn’t give further details or specify their ages.
The severity of burns made it difficult to identify some victims of the fire that broke out at about 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples.
Authorities announced on Sunday evening that they had completed the identification of the 40 people who died, the youngest of them aged 14.
On Monday, Italian authorities flew home the bodies of five victims from the airport in Sion, the regional capital.
