The bodies of 16 more victims of a bar fire in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana have been identified by police.
The youngest person was a Swiss girl aged 14, with nine aged under 18. The group includes people of Swiss, Italian, Romanian, Turkish and French nationalities, police said.
This brings the number of people identified who have been killed as a result of the fire to 24, authorities said in a statement. Eight Swiss citizens were identified on Saturday.
A criminal investigation into the people who ran Le Constellation bar is under way, while victim’s families are enduring an agonising wait for information about loved ones who are still considered missing.
Police said no further details will be released about the victims they had identified out of respect for their relatives.
Sparklers on bottles being carried too close to the ceiling is the likely cause of the fire during New Year’s celebrations at the bar, a preliminary investigation found.
The devastating fire killed at least 40 people and injured 119 others.
Many of the dead and missing are teenagers. Le Constellation was a venue known to be popular with a younger crowd in the ski resort town, where the drinking age is 16.
The eight identified and returned to their families on Saturday were all aged between 16 and 24, Swiss authorities said.
On Saturday, the Italian ambassador to to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, said the identification process was slow because of the severity of the burns many victims had suffered.
The French couple who own the bar – named by the media as Jacques and Jessica Moretti – are suspected of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence, the prosecutors’ office for the Valais region said.
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais canton lead prosecutor, said in a statement that investigators were looking into whether the acoustic foam on the venue’s ceiling was “the cause of the problem”, as well as “whether it complies with regulations”.
