Fire at Swiss ski resort bar kills 40, injures 115

What happened

About 40 people were killed and another 115 injured early yesterday when a fire tore through a bar in the Swiss ski resort town of Crans-Montana. Swiss President Guy Parmelin, who took office yesterday, called the New Year’s Day fire at the bustling bar, Le Constellation, “one of the worst tragedies our country has ever experienced.” 

Who said what

Le Constellation is “popular with teens” and “offers a ground-floor lounge with a speakeasy-style bar in the basement,” The Wall Street Journal said. According to witnesses cited by French and Swiss media, “sparkler candles used by staff when serving drinks” may have “inadvertently started the blaze” in the underground portion of the bar, which a “crush of people” then “attempted to flee from a single staircase.” Officials said the explosive fire did not appear to be intentional or an act of terrorism.

About 50 people who survived the blaze are believed to have “suffered severe burns,” a number that “far exceeds the capacity of Switzerland’s burn units in Zurich and Lausanne and its national disaster center” in Bern, The New York Times said, citing Dr. Robert Larribau of Geneva’s University Hospital. Burn patients are being transferred to hospitals in France, Germany and Italy.

What next?

Many of the people “celebrating in the bar appeared to be from different countries,” Reuters said, citing witnesses. But foreign governments trying to “establish whether their nationals were among the victims” were “facing a lengthy process because the severity of the burns had rendered identification challenging.” Identifying the victims is “expected to take several days,” the Journal said.