Investigators on Friday set about the painful task of identifying the burned bodies from a blaze that engulfed a crowded bar and killed around 40 people at a New Year's Eve party in the upscale Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.

So severe were the burns suffered by the mostly young crowd of revelers in the Le Constellation bar that Swiss officials said it could take days before they name all the victims of the fire, which also injured 115 people.

Valais Canton Police Chief Frederic Gisler on Thursday confirmed the casualty figures at a second press conference held in the afternoon.

"We are counting around 40 people who have died and 115 injured, most of them seriously," Gisler told reporters.

Those injured, most of them young people, were taken to hospitals in Sion, the capital of Valais Canton, as well as in other cities, including Lausanne, Zurich and Geneva, according to police.

Mathias Reynard, head of government of the canton of Valais, said some of the injured may later be transferred to hospitals abroad.

Local media earlier reported, citing police, that a major fire erupted at a bar in the center of Crans-Montana on New Year's Eve. The alarm was raised shortly after 1:30 a.m. local time, prompting the deployment of dozens of ambulances from several cantons as well as multiple helicopters.

What caused the blaze was unclear. Swiss authorities said it appeared to be an accident rather than an attack.

Some accounts from survivors and footage broadcast on social media suggested that the ceiling of the bar's basement may have caught fire when sparkling candles got too close.

Valais Canton Attorney General Beatrice Pilloud said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire.

Arduous task of identifying victims

Parents of missing youths anxiously issued pleas for news of their loved ones as foreign embassies scrambled to work out if their nationals were among those caught up in one of the worst tragedies to befall modern Switzerland.

"The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies," Crans-Montana's mayor Nicolas Feraud told a press conference on Thursday evening. This, he said, could take days.

Reynard, the head of local government, said experts were using dental and DNA samples for the task. "All this work needs to be done because the information is so terrible and sensitive that nothing can be told to the families unless we are 100 percent sure," he said.

No reports of Chinese casualties by Thursday 

There were no reports of Chinese casualties, China Media Group confirmed with the Chinese embassy in Switzerland.

According to the embassy, as of 7:00 p.m. on Thursday local time, no requests for assistance had been received via their consular protection hotline or duty phones, CMG reported.

While the embassy has formally coordinated with local police to determine if any Chinese citizens were affected, Swiss authorities said they were still in the process of verifying the identities and nationalities of the victims, according to CMG.

Swiss president postpones New Year's address

President of the Swiss Confederation Guy Parmelin described the incident as one of the worst tragedies in the country's history.

"The government would like to express its condolences to all the relatives," Parmelin said.

Flags at the Federal Palace will be flown at half-mast for five days, Parmelin added, stressing that such tragedies must be prevented in the future.

The number of people inside the bar at the time of the incident remains unknown, according to media reports.

Parmelin postponed his planned New Year's address and expressed condolences to the families of the victims.

The Valais cantonal administration announced that the canton has declared a state of emergency.

Tears and stunned silence at vigil

Hundreds gathered in silence in the freezing night in Crans-Montana on Thursday evening, laying flowers and lighting candles to remember those killed and injured in the horrific blaze.

Many of those who stood motionless overlooking the scene of the tragedy knew people who remain unaccounted for or were badly injured.

People spoke in whispers, if at all. The only sound came from a generator humming by the temporary white tents erected outside the bar.

Fathers rested a guiding arm around young sons. Youngsters embraced as they saw friends. People wept, hugged and held hands. Men stood looking straight ahead with stunned, damp eyes.

"My son could very well have been in there. He wasn't far away," Paul Markins, who has lived in the area for 24 years, told AFP.

"He was with his girlfriend; they were supposed to go in. And in the end, they didn't make it there," he said. "When he came home, he was really in shock."

A friend of his 17-year-old son has been transferred for treatment in Germany, with his body 30 percent covered in burns.

Mourners laid tributes on a table temporarily put up at the entrance of the road leading down to the bar, which was blocked from view by white screens. Two police officers stood guard at the cordon.

A steady stream of people brought candles and flowers; sometimes a single rose, sometimes a large bunch.

Several groups of young men looked utterly inconsolable. They held one another and looked into each other's eyes, grasping for words.

Veronica, an elderly Italian mourner who has lived in Crans-Montana for 40 years, wiped a stream of tears from her cheeks.

She said, "The pain of others is everyone's pain."

(With input from agencies)