{"id":222968,"date":"2026-01-02T06:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222968\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T06:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:16:11","slug":"new-year-party-at-swiss-ski-resort-turned-into-a-disaster-zone-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222968\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year party at Swiss ski resort turned into a disaster zone \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

As he approached Le Constellation bar to celebrate the \u200dNew Year in a snowy Swiss <\/a>ski resort bright with Christmas lights, Dominic Dubois saw flames engulfing the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see the orange, \u200dthe orange, yellow, red,\u201d Dubois said, describing chaotic scenes as bystanders and emergency crews worked together to pull victims clear.<\/p>\n

He described how people who had managed to escape the burning building were plunged into the cold outside. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo one of the priorities was to get everyone warm … \u200cthe curtains of the restaurant were used,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dozens of people were killed and around 100 injured<\/a> when fire tore through the crowded \u2060bar during a New Year\u2019s Eve party in the Crans-Montana resort, officials said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Nearby, local resident \u200cSamuel \u200bRapp, \u200d21, was dining at a Mexican restaurant when he heard of the blaze, and rushed with his girlfriend to Le Constellation, a bar popular with young locals.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice and paramedics … had already set up a protective perimeter,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were people screaming, and then people lying on \u2060the ground, probably dead. They had jackets over their faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fire broke out in the bar at 1.30 am local time. \u2060The cause of the blaze, which was initially \u2060reported as an explosion, was not yet clear but authorities said it appeared to be an accident rather than an attack.<\/p>\n

Rapp said he had seen \u200dvideos showing desperate partygoers trampling each other to escape. \u201cPeople were shouting, \u2018help me, please help us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LeLe Constellation bar is pictured at the end of the cordoned off street after a fire broke out overnight. Photograph: Harold Cunningham\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The local branch of UBS bank opened up to give refuge to survivors, said Dubois, standing at the police cordon on Thursday in a green knitted hat.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the tables were pushed aside and people entered and it was warm in there, there was more light as well, so the triage was down there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cParamedics, police – not the firemen, the firemen were out here. And then it was just ambulances coming \u200cback and forth as much as \u200cpossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video footage showed lines of ambulances queuing and helicopters landing to take victims of the blast to nearby hospitals and specialist burns units in other Swiss cities.<\/p>\n

A waiter in a restaurant near \u200cthe bar, who declined to be named, said first responders approached staff to ask for tablecloths to cover the bodies to conceal them \u2060from onlookers.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe cause of the fire is not yet known. Photograph: Jean-Christophe Bott\/AP <\/p>\n

In daylight on Thursday, the bar was covered in white sheeting with a tent set up outside and a grey hearse parked in front.<\/p>\n

A policeman stood guard, next to two festive reindeer. – Reuters <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he approached Le Constellation bar to celebrate the \u200dNew Year in a snowy Swiss ski resort bright…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,115105,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-222968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-ski-resort-fire","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}