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The injured include 68 Swiss citizens, 21 French nationals, 10
Italians, four Serbs, two Poles and one person each from
Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Czech Republic,
Luxembourg, Portugal and the Republic of Congo, according to a
police statement. There were also four dual nationals: of France
and Finland, France and Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, and
Italy and the Philippines.
Police said 83 of the injured were still in hospitals. They
didn't give further details or specify their ages.
The severity of burns made it difficult to identify some victims
of the fire that broke out at about 1:30 a.m. on New Year's Day,
requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples.
Authorities announced on Sunday evening that they had completed
the identification of the 40 people who died, the youngest of
them aged 14.
On Monday, Italian authorities flew home the bodies of five
victims from the airport in Sion, the regional capital.
Officials stood quietly as Swiss police pallbearers carried the
coffins through a line of firefighters and soldiers to an
Italian Air Force C-130 cargo plane. Mourners hugged before
relatives boarded the aircraft.
Investigators have said they believe festive sparkling candles
atop Champagne bottles ignited the fire when they came too close
to the ceiling.
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the
bar managers. The two are suspected of involuntary homicide,
involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire,
according to the Valais region's chief prosecutor.
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