{"id":385505,"date":"2026-01-03T11:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/385505\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T11:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:51:08","slug":"police-identify-first-four-victims-of-swiss-ski-resort-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/385505\/","title":{"rendered":"Police identify first four victims of Swiss ski resort fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police have identified the first four bodies of people who were killed in a fire at a bar in a Swiss ski resort on New Year’s Eve.<\/p>\n

The bodies of two Swiss women aged 21 and 16, and two Swiss men aged 18 and 16 have been returned to their families, police said.<\/p>\n

“Extensive” work from officers and the Institute of Forensic Medicine made the identifications possible, Valais cantonal police said in a statement, and work to identify the remaining victims continues.<\/p>\n

The blaze at Le Constellation in Crans-Montana killed 40 people and injured 119 others, officials have said. With many of the injured identified, families now face an agonising wait for information about those still missing.<\/p>\n

The likely cause of the fire was sparklers on champagne bottles being carried too close to the ceiling<\/a>, a preliminary investigation of how the fire began found. <\/p>\n

Switzerland’s President Guy Parmelin called it “one of the worst tragedies” experienced by the country.<\/p>\n

Further details about the identified victims, including names, have not been released.<\/p>\n

Among the dead and missing are many 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.<\/p>\n

On Friday, police said 113 of the injured have been identified, and include 71 Swiss, 14 French and 11 Italian citizens.<\/p>\n

A teenage golfer from Italy was the first death to be named, though Swiss and Italian officials have so far declined to confirm his death.<\/p>\n

A helpline has been set up for concerned families: +41 848 112 117<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have identified the first four bodies of people who were killed in a fire at a bar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-385505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}