The shock is total this second day of the year in the ski resort of Crans Montana, where a fire during a New Year’s Eve party caused 40 deaths, most of them very young people, even 14 and 15 years old, according to the appeals launched by the families of the missing.
Thirty-six hours after the tragedy, the authorities have not yet reported the identity of the victims, although the Italian government has indicated that the first one identified through DNA is a 16-year-old teenager from Italy.
Tragedy in Crans Montana
Another video of the Crans-Montana fire has emerged
Dear parents, please, I beg you
Beyond safety measures and pirate owners
Teach your children one thing
When faced with fire, drop the damn phone and run!!!!
Periodpic.twitter.com/1kcwCnwqdV
– Mambo Italiano (@mamboitaliano__) January 2, 2026
Swiss authorities have assured that every effort is being made to reach conclusions as quickly as possible and deliver the remains to the next of kin.
To this end, they pointed out that there is a team of 40 forensic experts working against the clock in this delicate and terrible task.
“We are working tirelessly to provide legitimate answers to all these victims and their families affected by this unprecedented drama; and the first of these is to know if their loved one is among the injured or if they are among those who have lost their lives,” Frederic Gisler, commander of the police in the canton of Valais, told reporters today.
The day has served to establish that the most likely cause of the fire in the bar ‘Le Constellation’ were flares lit and placed in champagne bottles.
These pyrotechnic elements “came too close to the roof, which ignited very quickly and in a general way,” said the prosecutor general of the canton of Valais (to which Crans Montana belongs).
This preliminary conclusion is the result of the analysis of videos taken with telephones of people who were in the damaged premises.
In the same direction point to the testimonies of survivors and the statements taken from the two people in charge of the establishment, who explained to the investigators the interior configuration of the premises, the work that had been carried out on it and its capacity.
The prosecutor did not specify how many people could have been in the nightclub at the same time, but said that it would be difficult to establish the exact number of people present at the time of the fire, since a bar is a place where people enter and leave all the time.
🚨🇨🇭 Tragedy in the Alps: 47 DEAD AND 115 INJURED AFTER NIGHT CLUB CAUGHT ON FIRE AT NEW YEARS EVE
New Year’s celebration turned nightmare at Le Constellation nightclub in Crans-Montana.
A flaming sparkler on a champagne bottle-held too close to the wooden ceiling-sparked a… pic.twitter.com/C8Syteq0pH
– Svilen Georgiev (@siscostwo) January 2, 2026
In addition, police have updated the number of injured to 119, up from the 115 previously reported.
Of these, 71 are Swiss, 14 are French, 11 are Italian, 4 are Serbian, 1 is Belgian, 1 is Bosnian, 1 is Luxembourgish, 1 is Polish and 1 is Portuguese, while the nationality of the rest is still unknown.
In addition, of the 119, 113 have been fully identified and the other six are still being investigated.
The figure of forty dead has been maintained, but answers regarding their identities are slow in coming.
“Internationally standardized formal identification protocols take time. To this end, files have been opened in connection with several countries, including Switzerland, Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal, but also the Philippines, Congo, Romania, Serbia and Turkey,” explained Gisler.
Half a hundred of the injured who have suffered very serious burns – and in some cases more than half of the body – have begun to be transferred or will be transferred in the coming hours to neighboring countries that have offered to help them receive the highly specialized treatment they require, as the number of patients exceeds Switzerland’s capacity in this area.
Meanwhile, the population of Crans Montana, a busy and much-loved ski resort, is in ‘shock’ and there have been many places to lay flowers and other objects in memory of the victims.
The faces most often seen leaving flowers, crying and hugging are of young people who knew some of the victims, who escaped the flames or who were in some other locale in the area on New Year’s Eve and now think they may well have been among them.
Filed under: Tragedy in Crans Montana
With information from EFE
