Faces of the missing: Families plead for information about missing loved ones, many of them children, following Swiss nightclub blaze that left 47 dead

Teenagers as young as 14 are still missing following the inferno in a Swiss nightclub that left at least 47 dead and 119 injured.

New Year’s Eve celebrations turned into a nightmare when Le Constellation bar in the ski resort town of Crans-Montana went up in flames, leaving survivors with third-degree burns.

Distraught families face an agonising wait to find out whether loved ones died in the early hours of Thursday at the nightclub in south-west Switzerland. 

So severe were the burns suffered by the mostly young crowd of revellers in the basement bar that Swiss officials said it could take days before they name all ​those killed in the fire. 

Parents of missing youths have issued desperate pleas for news of ​their children, as foreign embassies scramble to work out if their nationals were among ​those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to befall modern Switzerland.

Police commander Frédéric Gisler said all bar six of the 119 injured have been formally identified, but Swiss officials are yet to share the names of any victims or injured.

Six Italians are still missing and 13 hospitalised, while eight French people are missing and another nine are among the injured.

The first deceased victim to be named was 17-year-old Emanuele Galeppini, an Italian teenage golfer.

Guy Parmelin, the Swiss president, described the inferno as ‘one of the worst tragedies that our country has experienced’ in that it ‘cut short many young lives’.

Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, confirmed in a press conference today that the blaze was likely caused when sparklers in champagne bottles made the ceiling catch fire.  

Swiss official Stéphane Ganzer said between 80 and 100 people are seriously injured, with some victims suffering with third-degree burns covering 15 per cent of their bodies. The severity of their injuries means many survivors are unrecognisable. 

 Alice Kallergis

The brother of 15-year-old Alice Kallergis shared a plea for information about the missing Greek national on social media.

The teenager has not been seen since the outbreak of the fire at around 1.30am local time (12.30am GMT) in the luxury ski resort town, located in the heart of the Swiss Alps. 

According to Greek state broadcaster ERT, Kallergis is a permanent resident of Switzerland.

Her brother encouraged anyone with news of her whereabouts to contact the family immediately, saying: ‘We have no news.’

Arthur Brodard

Arthur Brodard, 16, has been missing since the fire.

His mother Laetitia said she had been searching all night for her son.

‘I’ve been looking for him for over 30 hours,’ she told BFMTV, after visiting every hospital she could find in search of news.

Ms Brodard said Arthur and 10 school friends had booked a table in Le Constellation to mark the start of 2026, but only one has been found.

She said: ‘He was looking forward to celebrating New Year’s Eve with his school friends at the resort and in this bar.

‘They had made plans and reserved a table in advance. Of the 11 people at that table only one has been found, and all the others are missing.

‘My son is alone in a hospital if he’s alive. Even if he’s in a morgue, because by now you have to be able to think clearly after more than 30 hours, I don’t know which morgue, I can’t be by his side.’

Ms Brodard continued: ‘Today, if he’s in the hospital, I don’t know which hospital. If he’s in a morgue, I don’t know which morgue, which country, which canton. He could be in Bern, Zurich, Milan, Stuttgart, Lausanne.

‘He could be anywhere. I’ve been in Crans-Montana for 30 hours without any news of my child.’

‘We’re parents, we’re doing everything we can to get answers.’

She insisted on defending the presence of children in the bar for New Year’s Eve celebrations.

‘We’re not irresponsible parents for letting our 16-year-olds go out for the New Year. All the parents knew where their children were. They were celebrating with friends.’

Referring to the Swiss authorities, Ms Brodard said: ‘There are no words, they can’t answer our questions because they don’t know anything. The burn victims have burns covering between 45 and 60% per cent of their bodies, mostly grade three.’

She said she had personally filed a missing person report for her son in order to gather videos and photos from the evening to catch a glimpse of him and ‘relive the evening minute by minute.’

She said: ‘At 1.28am., my son made a video for a group with his friends. At 1.30am, the first phone rang to report the fire.’

She added that she had been trying a dedicated victims’ telephone line set up by the Swiss authorities, but had trouble getting information.

She said: ‘The hotline still has no more information today.’

 Alicia Gonset and Diana Gonset

Alicia Gonset, 15, and Diana Gonset, 14, were reported missing in a social media post published by their family.

Emilie Pralong

Distraught French grandfather Pierre Pralong appealed on TV for any information about his missing granddaughter, Émilie, 22.

Having gone to Crans-Montana that evening with two other friends, Émilie has not been heard from since.

Her grandfather Pierre Pralong made an appeal on BFMTV on Thursday evening, January 1, ‘for witnesses to people at the La Constellation bar who might have seen Émilie.’

In a desperate plea, he asked for information from ‘anyone who might have seen Émilie at the La Constellation bar’, saying he wanted to ‘bring good news to (his) son’.

Mr Pralong said: ‘Give us the information. Call me, call Grandpa… We’re still hoping, we’re full of hope.’

Describing the horror of the fire, he added: ‘She had a very serious life, and the next day, she’s gone. It’s really something very hard for a grandfather. We got along very well; there was a lot of love between us.’

He added: ‘The resort, but also the whole country, is shaken… We always hope, we are full of hope. It helps us overcome whatever trials we face. Hope is clearly stronger than death.’

But while clinging to the hope that his granddaughter was ‘in more or less good shape somewhere in a hospital’, Mr Pralong said he was also realistic about how she might have died.

He said: ‘We have to be ready to accept a more difficult situation; we mustn’t dream, we have to be realistic in the face of a tragedy like this’.

In a comment on an Instagram post appealing for information about the young woman, someone offered a description of her tattoos to help identification: ‘A glass of wine on her left triceps and a swan on her right triceps.’

Stiven Ivanovski

An urgent appeal for information is being made by the family and friends of Stiven Ivanovski.

The Macedonian was last seen before the fire broke out at at Le Constellation in the alpine town, approximately two hours from the Swiss capital of Bern. 

‘He was wearing white pants and a white sweater, as seen in [the picture], possibly those sunglasses,’ a family member wrote. 

Giovanni Tamburi

Another young person reported missing is 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. We don’t know if he’s among the missing,’ she wailed. ‘They don’t tell us anything!’

The 16-year-old from Bologna, whose parents are separated, said goodbye to his mother after Christmas and had gone to Crans-Montana for a holiday with his father, who has a house in Switzerland.

He had dinner with friends before deciding to go to Le Constellation in the evening. He was last seen trying to escape the flames. 

Also at the bar was Riccardo Minghetti, according to La Repubblica, a 16-year-old from Rome.

The father of  young Italian girl, Chiara Costanzo, a 16-year-old from Milan, was also waiting desperately outside the Italian crisis unit in Crans-Montana to hear news.

For hours, the family hoped their daughter had been admitted to a hospital, but the long-awaited call never came.

Several Italians injured in the fire were transferred to the burns unit at the Niguarda Hospital in Milan, including 16-year-old Francesca Nota.

Her parents found her at a hospital in Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, in a coma, before she was transported to Italy. Her condition has been described as serious. 

Giuseppe Giola from Milan, and Manfredi Marcucci , from Rome, both 16, and Eleonora Palmieri, 29, from Cattolica, are all being treated at the Niguarda Hospital.

A photograph has emerged showing a waitress, riding on the shoulders of a colleague, holding a sparkler in the air moments before the deadly blaze ripped through the ski bar.

Separate footage filmed moments later shows a brave reveller trying to put out flames as they spread across the wooden ceiling of Le Constellation nightclub in south-west Switzerland.  

Witnesses say a sparkler in a champagne bottle caused the inferno in the bar in the ski resort town of Crans-Montana, where around 200 partygoers had gathered to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

French outlet BFMTV said it had been sent the photograph of the waitress by survivors, who took the picture moments before the fire began. 

Despite the efforts of the young hero to put out the flames, the blaze would soon engulf the crowded basement, travel up the narrow wooden stairs and set off explosions so deafening that residents feared a terror attack.

Survivors have since described harrowing scenes inside the club as people were burned, overcome by smoke, and struggled to escape amid a desperate stampede. 

So severe were the burns suffered by the mostly young crowd – many in their teens and 20s – that Swiss officials said it could take days before they name all the victims of the fire. 

Following the fire, two women told BFMTV they had been inside the nightclub when they saw a barman carrying a female server on his shoulders. 

She was holding a lit candle in a champagne bottle that set fire to the wooden ceiling, causing it to collapse, they said. 

Victoria, one of the survivors, recounted what she saw moments before the fire: ‘It was firework candles inside a champagne bottle that caused the explosion. The entire ceiling of the bar caught fire.’

‘All the windows were black and opaque with smoke,’ she added. She believes many of the victims suffocated.

‘Some people smashed windows to let in air,’ she said. ‘I’m still shaking; many were crying as they left. It was mass panic.’ 

Another photo sent to BFMTV by survivors shows several partygoers carrying champagne bottles filled with sparklers, apparently moments before the blaze.

Adrien was also at Le Constellation when the fire began. ‘We saw people smashing windows, running and screaming,’ he said. ‘Parents were racing up in their cars. It was like a horror movie.’ 

A young Italian man said he is still anxiously waiting to hear from a friend who had been celebrating New Year’s Eve at the bar in Crans-Montana.

He told Italian public broadcaster Rai News one of his friends was ‘was burned all over’ while another was taken to Zurich by helicopter.

‘Another friend of ours…last night we had no news, he couldn’t be found,’ he said.

‘My friends and I, we haven’t slept last night, we’ve barely eaten.’

Dalia Gubbay, a woman from Milan who has visited Crans-Montana over Christmas for the past 30 years, told Corriere della Sera that her daughter-in-law ‘saw people burned, white sheets being placed over bodies’.

Another witness, Gianni, told Swiss outlet 20 Minuten that victims suffered severe burns, with faces ‘completely disfigured’ and hair burned away. 

He said many were left blackened by the flames, with their clothes fused to their skin. 

Tim Steffens, a 19-year-old ski instructor who witnessed the blaze, spoke to the same outlet about the scenes of panic as the fire broke out. 

‘Everyone was pushing and shoving their way out of the stairwell,’ he said. ‘It was awful. They were all burned. Their clothes were burned away. It really wasn’t a pretty sight. The screams… not pretty, not pretty.’ 

Another woman told BFMTV of the difficulty in escaping the club, which had been rated just 6.5 out of 10 for safety.

‘The staircase leading out of the nightclub was extremely narrow,’ she said. ‘There was a huge surge in the crowd. We managed to escape just in time.’

Officials called the fire that raged through the crowded bar an ’embrasement généralisé’, a firefighting term describing how a blaze can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite explosively and cause what English-speaking firefighters would call a flashover. 

Parents of missing youths issued pleas for news of their loved ones as foreign embassies scrambled to ​work out if their nationals were among those caught up in one of ​the worst tragedies to befall modern Switzerland.

‘The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies,’ Crans-Montana’s mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference on Thursday evening. This, he said, could take days.

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.

The first victim of the deadly New Year’s Eve fire has been named as a 17-year-old Italian golf prodigy, Galeppini, who was pictured with Rory McIlroy. 

Galeppini’s death was confirmed in an Instagram post by the Italian Golf Federation, which remembered the teen as a ‘young athlete who embodied passion and authentic values’. 

‘In this time of great sorrow, our thoughts go out to his family and all those who loved him’, the tribute added. 

Galeppini had been out partying at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, when the deadly inferno broke out around an hour after midnight on New Years Eve.

The teenager, from Genova, was among the 13 missing Italians on a list released by the country’s Foreign Ministry yesterday.

His father had gone out to Le Constellation looking for him following reports of the fire, as his family launched an appeal to find find him. 

Appealing for help to find his son, Mr Galeppini said: ‘Around 1.30am we learned of the explosion. We went up there in front of the restaurant but we haven’t found him yet. He hasn’t answered the phone since last night.’

Galeppini’s friends and family members suspected he had been out at the bar because they hadn’t heard from him since midnight, when his father reportedly spoke to him on the phone to wish him a happy birthday, according to reports. 

The World Amateur Golf Ranking website describes the teenager as a junior golfer who ‘loves to golf, compete and eat’.

Authorities have warned that naming the victims or establishing a definitive death toll would take time because many of the bodies were badly burned.

While what caused the blaze was unclear, Swiss authorities said it appeared to be an accident rather than an attack.

Residents of Crans-Montana, which has the distinction of being not only a popular draw for skiers, but ⁠also golfers, were stunned by the inferno. 

Many knew victims and some said they were lucky not to have been there themselves.

Hundreds of people stood in silence near the scene as they came to pay their respects to the victims on Thursday night. 

Switzerland has also ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast for ⁠five days as a sign of mourning.

‘You think you’re safe here but this can happen anywhere. They were people like us,’ said Piermarco Pani, an 18-year-old who, like many others in the town, knew the bar well.

Dozens of people left flowers or lit candles on a makeshift altar at the top of the road leading to the bar which police had cordoned off. Some cried, others quietly hugged one another.

Behind the cordon, the bodies of some victims still lay in the bar, police said, as they pledged to work around the clock to identify ‍everyone who succumbed to the blaze.

Kean Sarbach, 17, said ⁠he had spoken to four people who escaped from the bar, some with burns, and that they had told him the flames had spread very quickly.

Elisa Sousa, 17, said she was meant to be there but ended up spending the evening at a family gathering instead.

‘And honestly, I’ll need to thank my mother a hundred times for not letting me go,’ she said at the vigil for the victims. ‘Because God knows where I’d ⁠be now.’

A promotional video for Le Constellation shows waitresses passing around champagne bottles fitted with sparklers, and carrying buckets full of several bottles also with sparklers inside. 

Images of the bar’s interior show what looks like soundproofing foam fitted on the ceiling – potentially flammable material that may have ignited in the blaze.

Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference that work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families, adding that the community is ‘devastated’.

Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said the number of people who were in the bar is ‘unknown,’ and its maximum capacity will be part of the investigation.

‘For the time being, we don’t have any suspects,’ she added, when asked if anyone had been arrested over the fire.

‘An investigation has been opened, not against anyone, but to better understand the circumstances of this dramatic fire.’

Axel Clavier felt like he was suffocating inside the Swiss Alpine bar where moments before he’d been ringing in the new year with friends and dozens of other revelers.

The 16-year-old from Paris escaped the inferno by forcing a window open with a table, but one of his friends was among the 47 other partygoers who died.

Clavier told The Associated Press that ‘two or three’ of his friends remained missing hours after the disaster.

Crans-Montana is less than three miles from Sierre, where 28 people, including many children, were killed when a bus from Belgium crashed inside a Swiss tunnel in 2012. 

With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit. 

Swiss President Guy Parmelin, speaking on his first day in the largely ceremonial job, said many emergency staff had been ‘confronted by scenes of indescribable violence and distress’.

‘Switzerland is a strong country not because it is sheltered from drama, but because it knows how to face them with courage and a spirit of mutual help.’

The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theatre at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, said Reynard.

Dr Robert Larribau, head of the Emergency Médical Communication Centre at Geneva University Hospitals, said the victims they are treating there are suffering from severe, third degree burns.

He added that the patients are ‘very young… between 15 and 25 years old’.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight, he said some are also suffering from ‘internal’ burns, after breathing in smoke.

The sheer number of casualties from the inferno has created difficulties for the local hospitals in Zurich and Lausanne, he said.

On Thursday, three of the wounded were being transported from Switzerland to a Milan hospital, the Italian civil protection agency said.

Top-flight French football team FC Metz said one of its trainee players, 19-year-old Tahirys Dos Santos, was badly burned and has been transferred by plane to Germany for treatment.

Speaking to Rai News, Anthony said he’d been queuing to get into the nightclub when he noticed smoke.

Describing how he originally thought it was a special effect, he said: ‘If I had arrived five minutes later, maybe I wouldn’t be here now.’

Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica, 40, the owners of the Swiss nightclub, are now facing a raft of questions over how the deadly blaze spread so quickly in their basement venue and turned it into a deathtrap. 

The couple, from the French island of Corsica, opened their bar called Le Constellation in the upmarket ski resort of Crans-Montana in December 2015 after falling in love with the area when they visited for a week’s holiday in 2011. 

The bar with an upstairs terrace and a basement club, featuring DJs and live music, became one of the most popular nightspots in the town with a clientele of mainly young and affluent winter sports fans and locals.

According to the Crans-Montana website, the bar offered an ‘elegant space’ and a ‘festive atmosphere’ with online descriptions of it being the ‘place to be’ and popular with an international crowd.

It’s understood that it is also one of few bars in the ski resort that allows revellers who are 16 and over inside rather than having to be 18.

The basement venue was fitted with wooden furnishings and foam-style ceiling material and had only one narrow staircase for partygoers trying to escape. 

Following the fire, more than 30 victims were taken to hospitals with specialised burn units in Zurich and Lausanne, and six were taken to Geneva.

A nearby convention centre has been transformed into a crisis unit, a few hundred metres away from the remnants of the burned nightclub. 

Le Constellation had a capacity of 300 people, plus another 40 people on its terrace, according to the Crans-Montana website. 

At a press conference in Switzerland on Friday, Reynard said the Lausanne University Hospital had ‘admitted more than 20 injured people’.

‘Several injured people are still fighting for their lives,’ he said, adding a nurse had told him about the silence in hospital wards.

Of the 113 identified survivors who have been wounded, 71 are Swiss, 14 are French, and 11 are Italian, according to Gisler.

The group also includes four Serbs, one Bosnian, one Belgian, one Luxembourger, one Pole, and one Portuguese. The origin of 14 individuals remains unclear. 

Pierre-Antoine Lengen, the chief inspector, said 30 officials have been deployed to help identify the victims, including dentists.

‘We are aware that the waiting is very difficult, but we cannot afford any mistakes in these procedures,’ he said, adding that DNA tests were being carried out.