OFFICIALLY CAPTURED: THE LAUGHING FILMER — JUST 30 SECONDS THAT MADE AN ENTIRE NATION SHUDDER.

After days of mounting outrage, police have confirmed they have identified and apprehended the person behind the most disturbing footage to emerge from the Swiss bar fire. Investigators recovered a discarded phone containing a short but horrifying clip: the image is blurred, faces indistinct — yet one detail cuts through with sickening clarity. A SADISTIC LAUGH, ringing out while chaos unfolded and LIVES WERE ENDING IN AGONY. Only 30 SECONDS LONG, but enough to freeze a country in collective disbelief. In the middle of smoke, screams, and desperation, someone chose to record — and to laugh.

The reaction has been explosive. Social media is flooded with rage, horror, and demands for accountability. Who laughs while people are dying? What kind of person films instead of helping? Authorities say the footage is now a crucial piece of the investigation, analyzed frame by frame, sound by sound, as they attempt to reconstruct the final moments inside the bar.

Young children and their parents light candlesImage source,EPA/Shutterstock
Families are still anxiously search for missing loved ones, almost two days after a fire ripped through a bar in the Swiss ski town of Crans-Montana.

People hold sparklers attached to champagne bottles in the Swiss ski resort bar just before the fire started - with a small orange patch of fire seen on what looks like a foam ceiling above the sparklers.

Among those reported missing are Achille Barosi – who had gone back to the bar to get his jacket – and Emilie Pralong, who is thought to have gone to the bar with several friends.

“I’m living a nightmare,” says the mother of another missing 16-year-old, Arthur Brodard.

Swiss officials confirmed earlier today that the death toll remains at 40 people and that formal identification of the dead is still under way.

We’ve also heard more about the 119 people injured. Seventy-one Swiss citizens, 14 French and 11 Italians are among them.

Authorities believe sparklers attached to champagne bottles are the likely cause of the fire – although “several hypotheses” are still being examined.

With the fate of many still unclear, schoolteachers and youth football clubs are among those sharing information about the missing. As our correspondent in Crans-Montana Sarah Rainsford puts it, one of the most striking details of this tragedy is how young the victims are.

We’re pausing our live coverage, but you can read more about the investigation into the fire and its causes in our news article, as well as this BBC Verify piece