Fire in Swiss Alps Leaves Dozens of New Year’s Revelers Dead

About 40 people celebrating at a ski resort bar were killed, and 115 were injured, many of them young, the authorities said.

Fire ripped through a bar packed with young New Year’s revelers in an upscale Swiss ski resort town early Thursday, killing about 40 people and injuring about 115, officials said, in what the Swiss president called “one of the worst tragedies our country has ever experienced.”

The victims, from multiple countries, had flocked to Le Constellation bar in the resort town of Crans-Montana, officials said, when the blaze began. It set off a flashover, when surfaces in an enclosed space become hot enough to ignite almost simultaneously, spreading flames with lethal speed. At least one explosion quickly followed.

Guy Parmelin, president of the Swiss federal council, said that “many lives, young for the most part, have been lost,” and several medical officials also noted the youth of the victims.

The head of a hospital in the city of Lausanne, where 22 severely burned people were taken, told the Swiss news site 24 Heures that most of them were between ages 16 and 26. University Hospital Zurich was treating 15 victims with severe burns, most of them “young adults around the age of 20,” a hospital spokesman said.

Beatrice Pilloud, the prosecutor general for the canton of Valais, said it was too early to comment on the cause of the fire or on possible safety lapses at the bar, though she ruled out the possibility of terrorism. The authorities, she said, were focusing on identifying the victims, returning their bodies to their families, interviewing witnesses, and collecting and examining cellphones found in the bar.

“We have no suspects,” she said. “An investigation has been launched, not against anyone, but to shed light on the circumstances surrounding this tragic fire.”

One witness, Bruno Martins, 17, said in an interview that when he headed to Le Constellation to meet friends, he found the bar in flames and surrounded by police officers. “It was total panic, people were trampling each other,” he said.

At least one of his friends was badly burned and others were unaccounted for. “It’s not real, it’s a shock,” Mr. Martins said. “Especially since it’s a bar we know so well.”

Another witness, Nathan Huguenin, told The Associated Press that when he was outside the bar, “I saw people pushing each other, falling down the stairs in a frenzy to escape.” He said, “I saw people completely burned.”

Alexis Laguerre, 18, told the Swiss broadcaster RTS that he and friends saw smoke billowing from Le Constellation as they walked past, and that he called the police at 1:28 a.m. “While I was calling the police there was an explosion,” he said, and flames erupted from the bar.

“People were running through the flames,” Mr. Laguerre recalled. Some, he said, tried to escape by using chairs to smash through windows.

It was a disaster “without precedent” for the region, Frédéric Gisler, the police commander of Valais, said at a news conference. “As I speak, we have counted around 40 people dead and approximately 115 injured, most of them seriously.”

Officials did not name any of the victims, and noted that the figures could still rise.

About 30 Italians were believed to have been at the bar, and 16 were unaccounted for, said Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani.

Forty ambulances and 13 helicopters ferried the injured, many of them badly burned, to hospitals in several cities around Switzerland. Three specialized jets took burn victims to Zurich, the country’s largest city, more than 100 miles away. A few were being taken to Niguarda Hospital in Milan, which has one of Italy’s leading burn centers, with burns over 30 to 40 percent of their bodies, said Guido Bertolaso, an official in the Lombardy region.

Few hospitals have specialized burn units, and they are almost always in large cities, making rapid treatment difficult for people in more remote areas. Switzerland has two major burn centers, in Zurich and Lausanne.

The nearest hospital to Crans-Montana, in the town of Sion, took 60 patients, seriously straining its capacity, said Mathias Reynard, president of the Valais canton. He appealed to people not to “clog emergency services with situations that can be avoided.”

Distraught people gathered at that hospital, hoping for word about their friends and relatives. Some, unable to find the missing, drove on to another hospital.

One of those at the hospital in Sion, Edoardo Saitta, 25, said he had escaped the bar as soon as he saw smoke, but that his friend was less fortunate — she was being treated at the hospital, where the staff had said she would be transferred to Milan.

Crans-Montana, in southwestern Switzerland, lies about 30 miles as the crow flies from the borders of both Italy and France. With only about 10,000 residents, it has 2,800 hotel rooms and draws about three million visitors a year, according to the ski resort’s website.

It is known for its slopes and views of the Alps, as well as its restaurants, luxury stores and big sporting events; it was scheduled to host men’s and women’s World Cup ski races later this month.

“This tragedy occurred in a place that is naturally associated with life and joy,” said Mr. Parmelin, the president, who postponed a scheduled New Year’s address to travel to the scene.

Nightclubs, bars and concert venues, combining large crowds, limited exits and, sometimes, pyrotechnics, have been the scenes of fatal fires around the world, some of them claiming hundreds of lives. Less than a year ago, a blaze in a nightclub killed 59 people in Macedonia. In the United States, one in Warwick, R.I., killed 100 in 2003. One of the worst gutted the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston in 1942, leaving 492 people dead.

Ségolène Le Stradic reported from Crans-Montana and Sion, Switzerland; Christopher F. Schuetze from Hanover, Germany; Aurelien Breeden from Marseille, France; and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by John Yoon, Isabella Kwai, Elisabetta Povoledo, and Monika Cvorak.

Related Content