Four people, apparently members of the same family, died after falling from the balcony of their seventh-floor apartment in Montreux, western Switzerland, on Thursday, the police said in a statement. A fifth person, a teenage boy, who also fell from the balcony, was hospitalized in serious condition, they said.
The five people have not been officially identified, but the police said they were believed to be members of a family of French nationals: a 40-year-old man, his 41-year-old wife, her twin sister, and the couple’s 8-year-old daughter, along with the sole survivor, the couple’s 15-year-old son.
Alexandre Bisenz, a spokesman for the Vaud canton police, said that it was likely that the people had jumped from the balcony. The police are trying to determine the exact circumstances and causes of the incident, and they said they had ruled out the presence of other people in the apartment at the time.
According to a preliminary investigation, the police said, two police officers knocked at the door of the family’s apartment on Thursday morning at about 7 a.m. to hand a summons to the father in connection with the home-schooling of one of the children.
The police officers heard a voice coming from the apartment asking them to identify themselves. After they did so, the officers did not hear any further sounds coming from the apartment, and they prepared to leave the building.
They were still in the building when a witness called the police to say that some people had fallen from a balcony, said Jean-Christophe Sauterel, the police spokesman in Vaud, the canton where Montreux is situated. Montreux, a Swiss resort on Lake Geneva, is a tourist hot spot famous for its jazz festival.
Michelle Steiger, 72, a neighbor, said the family involved in the episode was very discreet and that the residential building was inhabited by many families with children.
Mr. Sauterel said the local authorities usually send the police to visit individuals who fail to respond to repeated written summons. He said that one of the children living in the apartment was being home-schooled, which is legal in Switzerland, but requires routine checks on the process. When parents do not respond to solicitations for these checks, they can be summoned by the police, he said.
