Dozens of people are feared dead and around 100 more seriously injured after a fire broke out during New Year’s celebrations at a bar in Swiss Alps, police said early Thursday.
The fire started around 1:30 a.m. this morning in a bar called ‘Le Constellation,’ in the Alpine ski resort municipality of Crans-Montana, police spokesperson Gaëtan Lathion told The Associated Press.
“More than a hundred people were in the building, and we are seeing many injured and many dead,” he said, adding, “We’re just at the beginning of our investigation, but this is a internationally renown ski resort with lots of tourists.”
“We are devastated,” Frédéric Gisler, commander of the Valais Cantonal police, told a later news conference, according to the AP. Police said they could not immediately be more precise about how many people had been killed in the blaze.
But Italy’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Swiss police believed around 40 people had died in the fire. The victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns, it added.
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Mathias Rénard, a regional councilor said at the same news conference where Gisler spoke.
Patients were being transferred elsewhere, he said. Some of the victims were from other countries.
Beatrice Pilloud, attorney general of the Valais Canton, said it was too early to determine the fire’s cause as experts had not been able to go inside the wreckage. “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” she added.
In separate statement, police from the Valaisanne canton, or region, said a no-fly zone had been imposed over Crans-Montana.
“Numerous emergency personnel from the police, fire brigade and rescue services immediately responded to provide assistance to the many affected individuals,” the statement said. A reception center and helpline have been setup for impacted families, the statement added.
Crans-Montana is a luxury ski resort town in the region of Valais approximately two hours from the Swiss capital of Bern.
The community in the heart of the Swiss Alps, sits just 25 miles north of the Matterhorn. The municipality was formed only nine years ago, on Jan. 1, 2017, when multiple towns merged.
At the end of this month, it is set to host an international speed skiing championship — the FIS World Cup, where world’s best skiers will race each other downhill from the top of one of the mountains, according to the resort’s website.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
