A fire ripped through a bar’s New Year celebration in a Swiss Alpine resort shortly after midnight on Thursday, with dozens of people feared dead and at least 115 more injured, most seriously, police said.
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue, and overnight its crowded Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of one of Switzerland’s worst recent tragedies.
Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler told a news conference that around 40 people were killed at the bar.
Investigators have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
Gisler said work is under way to identify the victims and inform their families. But “that will take time, and for the time being, it is premature to give you a more precise figure”, he said, adding that the community is “devastated”.
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire but that terrorism had been ruled out. “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.
Switzerland: Dozens killed in fire at Swiss ski resort
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Helicopters and ambulances rushed to the scene to assist victims, including some from different countries, officials said.
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV that they were inside when they saw a barman carrying a barmaid on his shoulders. The barmaid was holding a lit candle in a bottle that set fire to the wooden ceiling. The flames quickly spread and collapsed the ceiling, they told the broadcaster.
One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.
Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames and likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street.
Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris, survived the blaze by using a table to push a plexiglass window out of its casing, allowing him to escape the “total chaos” inside the bar. One of his friends died and “two or three were missing”, he told AP.
‘Nightmare’
Officials described how the blaze likely triggered the release of combustible gases that ignited violently and caused what firefighters sometimes call a flashover or backdraft.
“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government of the Valais Canton.
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theatre at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Reynard said.
In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on the local population to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.
With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 metres in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit. The resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers for their final events before the Milan Cortina Olympics in February. The town’s Crans-sur-Sierre golf club stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said in a social media post that the government’s “thoughts go to the victims, to the injured and their relatives, to whom it addresses its sincere condolences”.
Thursday was Parmelin’s first day in office as the seven members of Switzerland’s government take turns holding the presidency for one year. Out of respect for the families of the victims, he delayed a traditional New Year’s address to the nation meant to be broadcast Thursday afternoon, Swiss broadcasters SRF and RTS reported.
(FRANCE 24 with AP and Reuters)