When 51-year-old Annouk Perret came to pay her respects to the victims of the Swiss New Year bar fire that killed at least 40 people in the ski resort of Crans-Montana, she knew that she too could have been one of the parents mourning a lost child.
Authorities say most of the victims of the blaze that ripped through the Le Constellation bar were young people in a country renowned for orderliness and unaccustomed to mass fatalities.
Laying flowers with her son Emile and her tearful mother-in-law Carmen outside the now cordoned-off popular bar, Perret recalled how her 17-year-old daughter wanted to go in too that night - but did not because of the long queue outside.
Instead, she said her daughter went to a bar opposite with friends. When flames engulfing the bar sparked a blast, they first assumed it was fireworks; when police quickly arrived, the group feared it was gunfire and fled, Perret said.
Afterwards, the family learned that another friend of her daughter decided to enter “Le Constellation” just before the fire and lost her life there, Perret told Reuters.
