Bodies Of First 4 Victims Of Swiss Bar Fire, Including Two Children, Identified

Forty people are known to have died in the blaze at a packed bar in the ski resort with 119 revellers injured.

Swiss police said Saturday they had identified the bodies of four Swiss victims, including two minors, of the New Year bar fire tragedy in Crans-Montana.

Valais canton police said investigators had identified the remains of a Swiss woman of 21, a man of 18, as well as a girl of 16 and a boy of 16.

Police added the bodies had been returned to their families as efforts continue to identify the other victims.

So severe were the burns that Swiss officials said it could take days before they name all those killed in the fire. The official toll is 40 dead, while 119 have been injured, many of them very seriously. Those numbers are not final, officials said.

"Many of those injured are still fighting for their lives today," Valais area chief Mathias Reynard told a news conference.

Around 50 of the injured have been, or will be, transferred to burn units in hospitals elsewhere in Europe, he said. Germany and France are among the countries treating some of the injured.

Of the injured, 113 have been identified, 71 of whom are Swiss, 14 French and 11 Italian, four Serbian, one Bosnian, one Belgian, one Polish, one Portuguese and one Luxembourgish, police chief Frederic Gisler told the same news conference.

Police were still on site to continue investigations into the cause of the tragedy, which Swiss authorities said they were treating as a fire, not an attack.

Sparklers held under a foam-clad ceiling likely ignited a deadly blaze that killed 40 New Year's revellers in a Swiss ski bar, authorities said on Friday, but the bar owner insisted that all safety standards were followed.

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