Death toll of Swiss New Year bar blaze rises to 41

An 18-year-old man injured in a New Year’s bar fire in the Alpine resort town of Crans-Montana has died, Swiss officials said, taking the death toll to 41 in one of the worst disasters in modern Swiss history.

In the statement made by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Canton of Valais, it was stated that the Swiss citizen was in the hospital in Zurich and died on Saturday.

Most of those killed in the Le Constellation bar fire were teenagers, and some of the 116 people injured are still in hospital with serious burns.

The other victim was a young man living near the western city of Lausanne, two sources with knowledge of the matter told ‌Reuters.

On Saturday, hundreds of people marched alongside grieving parents in the lakeside town of Lutry, near Lausanne, carrying a large banner demanding “truth and justice”.

Laetitia Brodard-Sitre, who lost her 17-year-old son Arthur in the fire, told the crowd carrying white roses, “Today we just want justice and truth, and afterwards we will mourn.”

The fire tested relations with neighboring Italy, which lost citizens and protested the bar owner’s release on bail.

Swiss authorities announced earlier this week that they would give the Rome Prosecutor’s Office access to the collected evidence.

The prosecutor said Sunday that he would not provide further information about the status of the investigation.

with AP