A Russian bucket brigade helps toads and frogs cross the road to get to a spawning site

A NATURE RESERVE NEAR SESTRORETSK, Russia (AP) — It happens every spring along a section of road north of Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg: Volunteers, many in yellow vests, patrol near the Sestroretsk Bog nature reserve.

They serve as crossing guards for thousands of toads and frogs, who are trying to navigate toward their spawning sites.

There usually isn’t much traffic, but even the relatively low number of vehicles still would kill up to 1,000 toads each year, said Konstantin Milta, senior herpetology researcher with the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute.

“On large highways, the death rate is monstrous. Sometimes the surface of the road can be covered with a layer of dead animals,” Milta told The Associated Press.

On this section, a large reddish-orange sign that features one of the amphibians warns motorists: “Attention! Slow down! Toads are crossing the road.”

When the volunteers find one of the creatures, they pick it up, put it in a plastic bucket and make a record before depositing it in the grass on the other side.

“So cute!” one of the volunteers said, referring to how the toad clung to her pink glove.

In the Sestroretsk Bog reserve, “toads migrate from the forest to the bay in the spring, reproduce in the reed beds in the coastal strip, lay eggs, and then, somewhere in mid-May, they leave the water and migrate back to the forest,” Milta said.

“So they cross this road twice,” he added.

Members of this bucket brigade have been volunteering their time since 2016, said Viktoria Samuta, head of the environmental education section of the Directorate of Protected Areas of St. Petersburg.

Depending on the weather, the work begins in mid-April and continues for a month or longer, she said, with more than 700 volunteers take part every year.

Last year, Samuta said, volunteers helped move thousands of specimens.

“It is very good that in recent years there have been more and more people ready to help living beings,” she said. “Our mission is, precisely, to make people love our nature more and more, and be willing to help it.”

Volunteer Diana Kulinichenko called it a nice break from her studies.

“I’ve been whining all semester that I want to go to the forest," Kulinichenko said. "And here’s the forest, the toads, you help the toads, you’re in the forest, you breathe clean air. And I just really want to volunteer, so after this I’ll be looking for where else I can do it.”

A volunteer holds a toad at the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A volunteer helps a frog cross the road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A frog sits in the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Frogs safely reach a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Frogs leap to get into the water in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A fence keeps frogs off a road until volunteers can move them across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A volunteer carries frogs across a road in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

A frog crosses a road to get a spawning area in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Frogs sit near a road fenced off by volunteers who help them move across safely in the Sestroretsk Bog natural reserve near St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Sixteen-year-old Arthur Brodard went to the Le Constellation bar with friends to celebrate the New Year. Nearly 48 hours after a devastating fire, his mother still held out hope he might be one of the six injured people who remained unidentified after one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.

Those half-dozen people gave a glimmer of hope for families whose loved ones were missing in the aftermath of the fire at the Alpine ski resort of Crans-Montana that killed 40 people and injured 119 others, 113 of whom have been formally identified.

“I’m looking everywhere. The body of my son is somewhere,” Laetitia Brodard, from Lausanne, Switzerland, told reporters. “I want to know, where is my child, and be by his side. Wherever that may be, be it in the intensive care unit or the morgue.”

The severity of the burns has made it difficult to identify both the injured and deceased, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. In some cases, wallets and any identification documents inside turned to ash in the flames. An Instagram account has filled up with photos of people who were unaccounted for, and friends and relatives begged for tips about their whereabouts.

Officials in the Valais regional government acknowledged the prolonged heartache.

“You will understand that the priority today is truly placed on identification, in order to allow the families to begin their mourning,” Beatrice Pilloud, the Valais region's attorney general, told reporters Friday during a news conference.

Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government, added: “We are aware of the particularly difficult hours, of the unbearable side of every minute that passes without answers."

Investigators said Friday that they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited the fatal fire when they came too close to the ceiling of the bar crowded with New Year's Eve revelers, two hours after midnight Thursday.

“We were bringing people out, people were collapsing. We were doing everything we could to save them, we helped as many as we could, we saw people screaming, running,” Marc-Antoine Chavanon, 14, told The Associated Press in Crans-Montana on Friday, recounting how he rushed to the bar to help the injured. “There was one of our friends: She was struggling to get out, she was all burned. You can’t imagine the pain I saw.”

Many of the injured were in their teens to mid-20s, police said. Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.

Officials said they would also look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes. The region's top prosecutor warned of possible prosecutions if any criminal liability is found.

The injured included 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French and 11 Italians, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland, according to Frédéric Gisler, police commander of the Valais region. The nationalities of 14 people were still unclear.

Emanuele Galeppini, a promising teenage Italian golfer who competed internationally, was officially listed as one of Italy’s missing nationals. His uncle, Sebastiano Galeppini, told Italian news agency ANSA that their family is awaiting the DNA checks, though the Italian Golf Federation on its website announced that he had died.

Dazio reported from Berlin. Associated Press journalists Geir Moulson in Berlin, Graham Dunbar in Geneva, and Nicole Winfield and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

People bring flowers and letters, reading "Rest in Peace", near the sealed off Le Constellation bar, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni)

People mourn behind flowers near the sealed off Le Constellation bar, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

The sealed off Le Constellation bar, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations is seen in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday morning, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni)

People bring flowers and candles near the sealed off Le Constellation bar, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni)

People mourn behind flowers and letters near the sealed off Le Constellation bar, where a devastating fire left dead and injured during the New Year's celebrations in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/ Antonio Calanni)