Two Confirmed Dead as Search Continues After Swiss Alps Fire

Two of the five people reported missing after a fire destroyed a restaurant and apartment building in Thusis, Switzerland, have now been confirmed dead, according to one Swiss outlet citing the Graubünden Cantonal Police.

The fire tore through the building housing Restaurant Beverin overnight Thursday into Friday, in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Fourteen people escaped; eight were injured, two of them seriously. The update on fatalities leaves three residents still unaccounted for, down from the five reported missing in the hours immediately after the blaze.

What's confirmed, and what isn't yet

The two deaths were reported by watson.ch, attributed directly to the cantonal police, shortly after the initial missing-persons figure was released. As of writing, that report hadn't been independently corroborated by other Swiss outlets covering the story, though it's the kind of detail that typically firms up quickly once a police source is on record. Police have not released names, ages or nationalities of any of the missing or deceased. A nephew of one missing man, speaking to 20 Minuten, said his 57-year-old uncle called him as the fire broke out and that he'd tried to reach him inside the building before smoke and flames stopped him on the first floor. Separately, residents told Swiss media that one of the missing is a young Portuguese woman who worked as a cleaner at the restaurant.

Why the search has been so slow

The building's stairwell collapsed during the fire, and crews have had to open the roof with a crane and dismantle the structure layer by layer from the top down to keep searching safely. Police have said the building remains at risk of further collapse, which limits how much of it investigators can enter at any one time and slows both the search for the missing and the fire investigation itself. No cause has been confirmed. The Graubünden Cantonal Police are working with the local prosecutor's office, and as of the most recent updates, no findings on how the fire started had been released.

Who lived there, and how the town has responded

Several outlets report that the building's upper floors, once hotel rooms, had been converted into small studio apartments rented mainly to individuals, including guest workers in the area. A four-person Careteam Grischun unit has been supporting affected residents, families and emergency responders, and the municipality of Thusis has arranged shelter and food for those displaced. Thusis's village festival, due to run this weekend, has been cancelled - residents told 20 Minuten it didn't feel right to hold it while five, now three, of their neighbours remain unaccounted for.

Context: not the building's first brush with fire

Austrian outlet Fireworld.at notes that the same building was near a serious fire in July 2016, when a neighbouring house and an old joinery burned down completely. Restaurant Beverin escaped that blaze with only smoke and water damage, according to that report - a detail with no bearing on this week's fire but relevant background given the building's history.

Thusis is a town of roughly 3,300 people in the Domleschg/Heinzenberg region of Graubünden, near the entrance to the Viamala gorge on the route toward the Alpine passes of San Bernardino and Julier. The nearby Heinzenberg ski area, also known as Tschappina-Urmein, was not affected by the fire.