Dozens of people are feared to have been killed and around 100 others injured after a fire tore through a crowded bar during a New Year‘s Eve party in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana in southwestern SwitzerlandSwiss police said on Thursday.
“Several tens of people are presumed to have died,” Frederic Gisler, police commander in the Wallis canton in southwestern Switzerland, told reporters.
Police, firefighters and rescuers rushed to the popular resort, one of the top-ranked ski destinations in Europe.
The “fire of undetermined origin” broke out in a bar popular with tourists, police in the Wallis canton in southwestern Switzerland said in a statement.
A police spokesman named the bar as Le Constellation, which has a capacity of 300 people and another 40 people on its terrace, according to the Crans-Montana website.
The spokesman said some 100 people had gathered there for New Year celebrations.
A tourist from New York filmed bright orange flames pouring from the bar, and said he saw people running and screaming in the dark.
Ambulances were still parked outside the bar hours later, and broken windows could be seen. Local media described a “smell of burning still in the air”.
Swiss media suggested that the fire may have started when pyrotechnics were used during a concert, but police said the cause was unknown.
Police spokesman Gaetan Lathion said earlier there had first been an “explosion of unknown origin” at around 1:30am (0030 GMT) at Le Constellation.
Police said the areas was “completely closed to the public”, and that “a no-fly zone over Crans-Montana has been imposed”.
“The party was in full swing … music and champagne flowing freely,” a resident who said they lived nearby told 24 heures, a Lausanne newspaper.
But as news of the fire broke, they said, the carefree mood vanished and people began gathering in the street. “We could hear the sirens in the distance. Around me, people were stunned, worried, silent.”
“We heard helicopters all night long,” another neighbour told 24 heures.
“With the fireworks, we didn’t understand what was going on at first. Then we saw the smoke. It’s terrible, a lot of young people go to that bar.”
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)
