Warning: This story includes details some readers may find upsetting.
A man rescued 10 young people from the blaze engulfing a Swiss ski resort bar after forcing open an emergency door.
Paolo Campolo, a Swiss-Italian financial analyst, raced from his home in Crans-Montana to Le Constellation bar after his teenage daughter called him to say her boyfriend and friends were trapped inside.
At least 40 people were killed and another 119 injured, many severely, when a fire swept through the packed basement of the bar as revellers welcomed in the New Year.
Speaking from his hospital bed, where he is recovering from smoke inhalation, Campolo, 55, recalled the horror of what he saw inside after forcing the door open.
“There were several bodies all around. Alive but burnt. Some conscious, others not,” said Campolo, who lives 45m from the popular drinking spot.
“They were begging for help in several languages. They were very young,” he told the Italian daily, Il Messaggero.
Police said on Friday that “everything suggests” the sparklers in bottles were the likely cause of the fire. Pictures and videos show a sparkler-topped champagne bottle, held by a barmaid, igniting the foam insulation on the ceiling.
A crowd, largely aged between 15 and 20, rushed to escape up a narrow flight of stairs through a single door.
Firefighters and emergency teams had started arriving when Campolo reached the scene, but he said there was no time to lose.
“I didn’t think about the pain, the smoke, the danger,” he said. “I pulled kids out with my bare hands. One after the other. They were alive but injured, many of them seriously.”
Only one of the victims has been named so far – Emanuele Galeppini, a 16-year-old Italian golfer. Authorities have said it will take time to identify the rest because many of the bodies are so badly burned.
Working with another man, Campolo said they rescued several of the injured and placed them on the snow-covered ground outside. He said many of the young women were wearing skirts and light tops and their skin was badly burnt.
“They were continuing to scream. All I could think of was that they could have been my children,” he said. “Whoever was inside had no escape. It was a trap inside.”
Campolo said he was haunted by the images of the injured and those he was unable to save.
“The lucid desperation of those who know they are dying. Burnt people looking at you and asking you not to leave them. It is a thing you cannot forget.”
Campolo had been at home celebrating the new year with his partner. His daughter, Paolina, 17, came for a toast before leaving to meet her friends. At about 1.20am, he received a call from his daughter, who said: “Dad, there’s a fire, and there are lots of injured people.”
He left the house with a fire extinguisher and encountered thick black smoke everywhere. “The fire spread very quickly and violently, lasting only a few minutes. Then it stopped. But there was no oxygen left inside and that’s what caused the massacre,” he said.
Campolo said his daughter somehow managed to escape unharmed, but her boyfriend was severely burnt and fighting for his life in hospital.
Around 50 people have or will be sent to European countries for treatment in specialised burn units. A large number of them had to be put in artificial comas, and several remain in critical condition.
The injured include 71 Swiss, 14 French, 11 Italians, four Serbs, one Bosnian, one Belgian, one from Luxembourg, one Polish and one Portuguese citizen, Frederic Gisler, the Valais Canton police chief, said on Friday.
The identification of the dead was ongoing, he added, cautioning that it would take time. Fingerprints, objects, clothing and DNA samples are all being examined by hundreds of specialists.
The owners of the bar have been questioned by police, who are trying to establish whether individuals hold criminal liability for the fire.
Beatrice Pilloud, the Valais Canton attorney general, said: “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.”
Crans-Montana is popular with visitors from Britain, France and Italy.
The UK Foreign Office has not confirmed whether any Britons are among the casualties.
Parents of missing youths have issued pleas for news of their children, as foreign embassies scramble to work out if any of their citizens were caught inside the bar.
The father of one of the Italian teenagers seriously injured in the fire gave an emotional account of his son’s condition on Friday.
Umberto Marcucci, father of 16-year-old Manfredi, was close to tears as he spoke to reporters outside Milan’s Niguarda Hospital.
“My son is ill, but he is fine. He is alive, and that is the most important thing. He has burns to 30% of his body, but thankfully, the burns are on his arms, back and hair. He was caught in the flames while fleeing the bar.”
Marcucci was woken by a phone call from another parent alerting him to the fire at the bar and he immediately raced down to the piazza.
“I saw many, many people on the ground. People had brought cushions, blankets, sheets, from the other bars. They were trying to protect people because it was very cold at -10C.”
He then drove his badly injured son and two others to a Swiss hospital before Manfredi was airlifted to Milan.
“He said to me: ‘Dad, I’m in pain, I don’t know what to do, I feel terrible, my hands hurt.’ His hands were like the photos of the little girl in Vietnam, to give you an idea. And everyone’s hands were like that.
“Unfortunately, the girls were worse off because they were wearing skirts and tights, while the boys were wearing jeans, which protected their legs. The girls are more badly burnt than the boys, unfortunately.”
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