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The owners of the Swiss bar where 40 people died in a New Year’s fire said on Tuesday that they were “devastated and overwhelmed with grief,” pledging their “full cooperation” with investigators.
“Words cannot adequately describe the tragedy that unfolded that night at Le Constellation,” Jacques and Jessica Moretti said in their first public statement since a criminal investigation was opened against them Saturday following the blaze in the Swiss ski resort town of Crans-Montana.
“We will under no circumstances attempt to evade these matters.”
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the bar’s managers and they are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, according to the Valais region’s chief prosecutor.
Those comments come on the same day it emerged that fire safety inspections hadn’t been carried out at the bar since 2019, local authorities said on Tuesday.
Investigators have said they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles started the fire at the bar in the resort town of Crans-Montana when they came too close to the ceiling.
Authorities are looking into whether soundproofing material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.
Regulations in Valais call for annual fire safety inspections of buildings that are “accessible to the public,” and regional authorities say they are the responsibility of the municipality.
On Tuesday, the Crans-Montana municipality said that inspections of Le Constellation that included fire safety checks had been carried out in 2016, 2018 and 2019 and that modifications had been requested but no issues with soundproofing measures had been raised.
The local council discovered after consulting documents after the fire that “periodic checks were not carried out between 2020 and 2025,” the head of Crans-Montana’s municipal government, Nicolas Féraud, said at a news conference.
“We regret this bitterly,” he said, adding that it will be up to judicial authorities to determine what influence that may have had on the events that led to the fire.
Féraud said he couldn’t immediately explain why safety inspections hadn’t been conducted for such a long time.
He also said that reports from the inspections that were carried out mentioned a maximum capacity of 100 people on the bar’s ground floor and 100 in its basement.
It’s unclear how many people were in Le Constellation when the blaze broke out and investigators have said that may never be known.
Investigators finished identifying the 40 dead on Sunday and on Monday said that they had identified all 116 people who were injured, from several countries.
Additional sources • AP