A former student at a British private school in Hertfordshire is missing after the deadly nightclub fire in Switzerland.
Charlotte Niddam, 15, attended Immanuel College and hasn’t been heard from since the deadly fire.
In a statement, Charlotte’s former school wrote: ‘We are reaching out with an urgent request for our school community to come together in support of Charlotte Niddam. Charlotte was a student at Immanuel College, and her family have now moved back to France.
‘The families have asked that we all keep them in our thoughts and prayers during this extremely difficult time.
‘We are all praying for a miracle for Charlotte and the others, and want the families to feel the full strength of the Immanuel College community’s support.’
Sparklers attached to champagne bottles caused the New Year’s Eve fire in Switzerland, which killed at least 40 people, an initial investigation has shown.
Footage from the basement of Le Constellation in Crans-Montana, a winter resort in the Valais region, shows waitresses bringing alcohol bottles with lit sparklers moments before flames engulfed the building.
Attorney General Beatrice Pilloud told a press conference the prosecution service is ‘sparing no effort in order to determine the circumstances of this tragic event’.
‘It would appear that the fire was started from sparkler candles, otherwise known as flares, which were placed on the top of champagne bottles,’ she said.
‘The flares were taken too close to the ceiling. This led to what is referred to a flashover incident, where the fire spread very rapidly.’
Those interviewed include the two French managers of Le Constellation.
Pilloud added: ‘We will be able to investigate whether any individuals bear criminal liability for this incident.’
‘And if this is the case and if these people are alive, all the investigations will be opened for fire by negligence, homicide by negligence and injuries by negligence.’
Axel Clavier, who escaped the fire by forcing one of the windows open with a table, said there were ‘waitresses with champagne bottles and sparklers.’
The 16-year-old, whose friend was killed in the inferno, added: ‘They got too close to the ceiling, and suddenly it all caught fire.’
He also told AP that ‘two or three’ of his friends remain missing hours after the disaster.
Two women told BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle, also in a bottle.
They said the flames quickly spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, leading to a crowd surge.
The press conference was also told that Swiss police have identified 113 of the 119 injured in the inferno.
Some of their nationalities have been determined:
- 71 Swiss
- 14 French
- 11 Italian
- 4 Serbian
- 1 Bosnian
- 1 Belgian
- 1 Portuguese
Only one fatality has so far been identified to the public and the media – a 16-year-old golfer, Emanuele Galeppini.
Pierre-Antoine Lengen, head of the Swiss Judicial Police, said identifying the dead is the ‘absolute priority’ at the moment, adding that almost every cantonal police body is being leveraged.
People frantically tried to escape from the basement up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.
Up to 100 are currently in critical condition and still fighting for their lives in hospital, Stéphane Ganzer, Valais state councillor, told RTL.
Most injuries, many of them serious, occurred when flames swept through the crowded bar less than two hours after midnight.
Foreign governments have been calling around to establish whether their citizens are among the dead, as Swiss authorities struggle to identify the bodies due to the severity of their burns.
Investigators are saying it could take days before they name all the victims and that they will have to resort to DNA and dental records.
Crans-Montana’s mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference: ‘The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies.’
Mathias Reynard, head of government of the canton of Valais, said experts were using dental and DNA samples for the task.
‘All this work needs to be done because the information is so terrible and sensitive that nothing can be told to the families unless we are 100 percent sure,’ he said.
Italy and France are among the countries that have confirmed that some of their nationals are missing and Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani will visit Crans-Montana today.
One of those missing was Giovanni Tamburi, whose mother Carla Masielli issued an appeal for any news about her son and asked the media to show his photo in hopes of identifying him.
‘We have called all the hospitals but they don’t give me any news. We don’t know if he’s among the dead,’ she said.
‘We don’t know if he’s among the missing. They don’t tell us anything!’
Arthur Brodard, 16, has been missing for more than 48 hours after marking the New Year in Le Constellation.
His mother Laetitia Brodard-Sitre appealed on social media: ‘My son Arthur Brodard, born February 22, 2009, was among the victims of the fire in Crans-Montana.
‘We don’t know if he’s alive or where he is. If you have any information about which hospitals he might be in, please contact me.’
Australia has also said one of its nationals was injured.
Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that 14 Polish nationals were injured in the fire.
All bodies of those killed have now been removed from the site, a Swiss official said.
Authorities have warned that naming the victims or even establishing a definitive death toll would take time because many of the bodies were badly burned.
People gathered outside the Constellation Bar last night, as the communitycomes to terms with the shock of what unfolded at the venue. ‘
