Investigators have identified the last 16 people who died in the New Year’s Eve bar fire at the Swiss mountain resort of Crans-Montana, police said on Sunday.
Officers in Valais canton said they had managed to identify the last of the 40 bodies from the blaze, one of the worst disasters in recent Swiss history, with forensic work particularly slow-going due to the horrific burns sustained by most of the victims.
Charlotte Niddam, 15, a former pupil at Immanuel College in Hertfordshire, was among the last 16 victims to be identified. She was initially reported as missing.
Her family said in a social media post on Sunday: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beautiful daughter and sister Charlotte.”
The post said her funeral is expected to take place in Paris later this week.
According to the Crans-Montana resort website, Charlotte had been working as a babysitter in the area.
The last 16 victims included two Swiss girls aged 15, a Swiss woman aged 22, a Swiss and French woman aged 24, two Italian girls aged 16 and 15, an Italian boy aged 16, a 22-year-old Portuguese woman, a 17-year-old Belgian girl, two French women aged 33 and 26, two French men aged 23 and 20, two French teenage boys aged 17 and 14, and a 15-year-old girl with French, British, and Israeli nationalities, police said.
Those previously identified were 10 Swiss nationals, two Italians, one person with Italian-Emirati citizenship, one Romanian, one person from France and one from Turkey, Valais police said.
The mother of Arthur Brodard, a 16-year-old Swiss boy, confirmed that he was among those killed. “Our Arthur has departed to party in heaven,” Laetitia Brodard-Sitre said on her Facebook page. “Now we can start our mourning, knowing he is in peace.”
Hundreds of people joined a silent procession through the upmarket resort town on Sunday to honour the victims of the catastrophe.
After a service at the Chapelle St-Christophe, the sombre crowd filed silently out of the chapel to organ music. Some exchanged hugs and others applauded before joining the silent march up the hill to Le Constellation bar.
People in the dense procession walked in bright sunshine past shuttered stores. A stream of mourners and well-wishers deposited bouquets at a makeshift memorial piled with flowers, cuddly toys and other tributes.
Applause began rippling from one end to the other as dozens of police and emergency services workers came up through the middle of the procession to be celebrated as heroes.
“Through this tragic event, I believe we must all remember that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity,” said Véronique Barras, a local resident who knows grieving families. “It’s important to support each other, to hug each other and to move forward towards light.”
In the crowd, Paola Ponti Greppi, an 80-year-old Italian who has a home in Crans-Montana, called for better safety checks in bars. “We need more safety in these places because it’s not the only place like this. Why didn’t the town do the proper checks? For me that’s terrible,” she said.
During the hour-long mass, the bishop Jean-Marie Lovey said condolences had poured in from around the world, including from the pope.
“Countless people join us – people whose hearts are broken,” Lovey told the congregation. “Many expressions of sympathy and solidarity reach us.
“Pope Leo XIV joins in our sorrow. In a moving message, he expresses his compassion and his care for the victims’ families and strengthens the courage of all who are suffering.”
The Rev Gilles Cavin spoke of the “terrible uncertainty” for families unsure if their loved ones were among the dead or still alive among the injured.
“There are no words strong enough to express the dismay, anguish and anger of those who are affected in their lives today. And yet we are here, gathered, because silence alone is not enough,” he said.
Switzerland will hold a national day of mourning on Friday, with church bells ringing across the country and a minute’s silence planned.
“In this moment of reflection, everyone in Switzerland can personally remember the victims of the disaster,” the Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, told the Sonntagsblick newspaper.
Investigators believe the fire started when sparkling candles were held too close to the ceiling of the venue’s basement level, the region’s chief prosecutor has said.
Two people who ran the bar are under criminal investigation on suspicion of offences including homicide by negligence, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, prosecutors said on Saturday. The announcement did not name the managers.
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 also would look at safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes.
There were 119 people injured, including many with disfiguring wounds, and several were transferred to burns units in hospitals across Europe to assist Switzerland’s overwhelmed clinics.
Authorities said the severity of the victims’ burns had required the use of DNA samples and dental records to help identify the bodies.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
