Around 40 people have been killed and 115 injured after a fire ripped through a bar on New Year’s Eve in a popular Swiss ski resort.
The blaze broke out at Le Constellation bar in the Alpine resort of Crans-Montana, in what has been described as one of Switzerland’s “worst tragedies”.
Crowds of “mostly young people” had gathered to celebrate the new year when the bar was engulfed in flames at around 1.30am on Thursday, police said.
A man at the scene said people smashed windows to escape the fire, some gravely injured. He said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames, likening what happened to a “horror movie”.
The cause of the fire has still not been confirmed, but officials have ruled out an attack.
A video from inside the bar shows the beginning of the fire, with the ceiling ablaze.
At a press conference on Thursday evening, attorney general Beatrice Pilloud was asked to respond to rumours that bottles of champagne carrying flares might have been the cause of the blaze, but said she could not confirm anything while the investigation is ongoing.
State councillor Stephane Ganzer said the fire had produced a “conflagration” – a large blaze that takes hold very quickly, similar to a flashover – rather than an explosion, which earlier reports had mentioned.
Those in the bar frantically tried to escape from the basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door, causing a crowd surge, eyewitnesses said.
Attorney General Beatrice Pilloud was questioned on whether the staircases were “very narrow” during Thursday’s press conference, and said investigations will assess whether they were in line with requirements.
A total of 42 ambulances, 13 helicopters and three “disaster trucks” rushed to the scene as witnesses described the injured being treated in improvised triage centres set up in a nearby bar and in a branch of UBS bank.
Samuel Rapp, 21, was dining at a Mexican restaurant when he heard of the blaze, and rushed with his girlfriend to Le Constellation.
“Police and paramedics … had already set up a protective perimeter,” he said. “There were people screaming, and then people lying on the ground, probably dead. They had jackets over their faces.”
Many of the people injured were taken to hospitals across Switzerland. Sixty people are receiving care at Sion hospital, with a “significant number” in a critical condition, while the director of Lausanne University Hospital, Claire Charmet, confirmed the facility was treating 22 people so far.
Ms Charmet told Swiss newspaper 24 Heures that patients as young as 16 were being treated.
Many people are still awaiting news of their missing friends and family.
“I know someone who might have been among the victims and I can’t reach her. I’m very worried,” said local resident Karine Spreng. “I’m going to try to contact other people who know this woman to see if she is still alive.”
Officials said it was likely that foreign nationals were among the victims. Sixteen Italians have been reported missing, while around a dozen more Italian nationals are being treated in hospital, Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday.
Swiss authorities have said work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families, but warned that the process “will take time”.
Swiss president Guy Parmelin visited the scene on Thursday, describing the fire as “one of the worst tragedies that our country has experienced”. Mr Parmelin said many of those killed were young people.
He confirmed that flags would fly at half mast across the country for five days. Out of respect for the families of the victims, he delayed a traditional new year address to the nation that was scheduled to be broadcast on Thursday afternoon.
The British Foreign Office said staff are ready to help any British nationals affected by the fire, though it is understood there have not been any requests for consular assistance from any UK nationals or their families so far.
Crans-Montana is in the heart of the Swiss Alps, just 25 miles north of the Matterhorn.
With high-altitude ski runs at around 3,000 metres, Crans-Montana is one of the winter sports centres of Switzerland’s Valais region, drawing winter sports enthusiasts from across the world.
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