Dozens presumed dead, about 100 injured in fire at Swiss Alps bar during New Year’s celebration
Global News
Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 100 injured, most of them seriously, following a fire at a bar in a Swiss Alps resort town during a New Year’s celebration.
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 100 injured, most of them seriously, following a fire at a bar in a Swiss Alps resort town during a New Year’s celebration, police said Thursday.
“Several tens of people” were killed at the bar, Le Constellation, Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference.
Work is underway 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,” Gisler 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. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.
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.
