Around 40 people are believed to have been killed and 100 injured after a fire engulfed a crowded bar during a New Year's Eve party in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.
Swiss police confirmed that “several dozen” partygoers were dead. The victims could not be immediately identified due to the severity of the burns, the ministry said. The department confirmed that responsibility for arson does not lie, since the fire is considered the result of an accident.
“There was an explosion of unknown origin,” Gaetan Lathion, a police spokesman for the canton of Valais in southwestern Switzerland, told AFP. “There are several injured and several dead.”
He said the explosion occurred around 1:30 a.m. local time (0030 GMT) at Le Constellation bar, popular with tourists, as revelers were ringing in the New Year. “There were over a hundred people in the building, and we see a lot of injuries and a lot of deaths,” he said.
Video from the scene shows orange flames shooting from the bar and lounge on the first floor. Screams and loud music are heard. Other revelers stand in the snow outside a building in the center of the Valais resort.
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were in Le Constellation when they saw a bartender carrying a female employee on his shoulders. She held a lit candle in a bottle that set the wooden ceiling on fire. According to them, the flames quickly spread and collapsed the ceiling.
One of the women described the influx of crowds as people desperately tried to escape from the basement nightclub, up the narrow stairs and through the narrow door.
Another witness who spoke to BFMTV said partygoers broke windows to escape the fire, some of them were seriously injured, and panicked parents rushed to the scene in cars to check if their children were trapped inside. The young man said that he saw about 20 people trying to get out of the smoke and flames. He compared what he saw to a horror movie he was watching from across the street.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday morning, Valais cantonal president Matthias Reynard said what should have been a moment of celebration “turned into a nightmare.”
Police commander Frederick Giesler spoke of “several dozen dead”, adding that he was devastated by the tragedy. “I cannot hide from you that we are all shocked by what happened last night in Crane,” he told a news conference.
“According to our data, about 100 people were most seriously injured and, unfortunately, dozens of people are considered dead,” he said, adding that patients were sent to hospitals in Sion, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich.
“At this point we are treating this as a fire and not considering the possibility of an attack,” prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said, adding that authorities had launched a full investigation.
She said authorities were trying to deliver the victims' bodies to their families. “A lot of resources have been put into forensic testing to identify victims. These resources are intended to ensure that we can deliver bodies to families as quickly as possible,” she said.
Some of the victims came from other countries, said Stephane Ganser, head of security for the canton of Valais.
Zion Hospital said it received several patients, but did not specify the number. Time. From the scene on Thursday morning, newspaper journalist Romaine Morar described “a burning smell hanging in the air.”
The area was completely closed and a no-fly zone was imposed over Crans-Montana, police said, adding that the cause of the fire remained unclear.
A reception center and helpline have been set up for affected families, Lation said. “We are just beginning our investigation, but this is a world famous ski resort with a lot of tourists.”
French media said that Le Constellation is a famous place in Crans-Montana. It opened in 2015 and could seat up to 300 people inside and another 40 on the heated terrace. There was a smoking area and a hookah corner in the room. There was a daytime cafe as well as a lounge bar and nightclub.
The bar's Facebook and Instagram pages appear to have been deleted and are no longer accessible. Its owners as reported French couple originally from Corsica.
The village is located in the heart of the Swiss Alps, 25 miles (40 km) north of the Matterhorn, one of the most famous alpine peaks, and 80 miles south of Zurich.
The highest point in Crans-Montana, with 10,000 residents, is nearly 3,000 meters (1.86 miles), according to the website of the municipality, which is seeking to move away from a tourist culture and attract high-tech research and development.
Authorities in the region, busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, urged people to exercise caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could strain medical resources that are already stretched, the AP reported.
In collaboration with Agence France-Presse and Associated Press.
