The first three Italian victims of the New Year's Eve tragedy at the Constellation in Crans Montana have been officially identified: sixteen-year-olds Giovanni Tamburi, Achille Barosi, and Emanuele Galeppini. Lombardy Region President Attilio Fontana announced the death of a fourth sixteen-year-old, Chiara Costanzo, from Milan, and expressed his condolences in a post.
The number of Italians injured in the fire has risen from 13 to 14, nine of whom have already been repatriated, all hospitalized at Niguarda Hospital in Milan. The Italian Ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, confirmed the identification of the three, without specifying their names. Their families have been informed.
Among them is Tamburi, a man from Bologna: a friend said he had lost sight of him while fleeing the club. Galeppini, originally from Rapallo but living in Dubai, was a promising golfer and a big Genoa fan. Barosi, a man from Milan, was last seen around 1:30 that morning, returning to the club to get his jacket and phone. His family has a home in Crans-Montana. The boy was a friend of another victim, Chiara Costanzo, who has not yet been officially identified.
Two more Italians classified as missing remain to be identified. Their families are experiencing anguish, unsure of the fate of their loved ones. This anguish is turning into anger over the slow pace of Swiss authorities' identification of the bodies found in the nightclub. A total of 121 people are injured, five of whom are unidentified, and 40 are dead. Of these, the first eight officially identified are Swiss. They are four girls aged 24, 22, 21, and 16, and two boys aged 21, two 18, and one 16. Their bodies have already been returned to their families.
"The identification procedures will continue and will be mostly completed between today and tomorrow, while the identification of some victims will take longer," assured the Italian Ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado.
The accident has taken a very heavy toll, being investigated by the Valais Cantonal Prosecutor's Office, which today opened a criminal investigation against the two French owners of the venue, Jacques and Jessica Moretti. Meanwhile, the repatriation of the injured Italians continues unabated: today, a helicopter from the Aosta Valley Civil Protection Department transported fifteen-year-old Sofia, a student at Milan's Virgilio High School, to the Niguarda Hospital in Milan, suffering from severe burns. This afternoon, her classmate Francesca also arrived at the Milan hospital from Zurich in critical condition. Italian institutions are working tirelessly in Crans-Montana, as well as in various other regions.
At the Swiss station, the Consulate General of Geneva has set up a crisis unit at the Le Régent conference center, liaising with the Farnesina, where Ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornado has been working since Thursday morning. Furthermore, the Italian Civil Protection Department is present with an operational team and medical staff, who are visiting the injured Italians hospitalized in various facilities, as well as emergency psychologists from the Aosta Valley and Lombardy. And there is also growing concern in the communities where the young people involved in the tragedy come from. Answers may come from DNA tests, which are also being compared with the DNA of the as-yet-unidentified injured who are hospitalized. And there is also the tragedy of a high school class, the third D of the Virgilio high school in Milan, which is experiencing moments of anguish these days for the four students injured in the fire: Francesca and Sofia, who have already been repatriated, and Leonardo and Kean. The Crans-Montana tragedy has primarily affected young people.
But it also witnessed extraordinary heroic acts by many young people who rushed to the aid of the injured in the first moments of the fire. Brave heroes, like Gianni Campolo, a 19-year-old from Geneva of Italian origins, who immediately rushed to the Constel with his father Paolo and helped evacuate the injured. He now voiced his anger at the lack of a fire door that could have facilitated the escape of the many people trapped inside: "If there had been another exit open," he said emotionally, "there would have been fewer deaths."
(Unioneonline)