Dozens dead and 115 injured in fire at Swiss Alpine bar during New Year’s celebration
It is not yet clear what started the blaze at the Crans-Montana resort, a popular international ski and golf destination
About 40 people were killed and another 115 injured, most of them seriously, after a fire ripped through a bar’s New Year celebration in a Swiss Alpine resort less than two hours after midnight on Thursday, police said.
Authorities did not immediately have an exact count of the deceased.
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue, and overnight, its crowded Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Valais Canton police commander Frederic Gisler said during a news conference that work is under way to identify the victims and tell their families, 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.