{"id":347017,"date":"2026-01-01T21:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T21:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/347017\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T21:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T21:22:08","slug":"switzerland-to-hold-five-days-of-mourning-after-40-killed-in-resort-fire-switzerland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/347017\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland to hold five days of mourning after 40 killed in resort fire | Switzerland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Switzerland will hold five days of mourning after an \u201cunprecedented\u201d fire tore through a crowded bar, killing about 40 people and injuring 115 who were celebrating at a New Year\u2019s Eve party in the Alpine ski resort of Crans-Montana.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s president, Guy Parmelin, described the blaze as one of the most traumatic events in Switzerland\u2019s history. \u201cIt was a drama of an unknown scale,\u201d he said, paying tribute to the many \u201cyoung lives that were lost and interrupted\u201d.<\/p>\n

Switzerland owed it to those young people, who had their \u201cprojects, hopes and dreams\u201d cut short, to ensure such a tragedy never happened again, added the president.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said the fire broke out at 1.30am in the town\u2019s Le Constellation bar after sparklers or flares were put into champagne bottles. Two women told the French broadcaster BFMTV a bartender carried a female member of staff who was holding one of the bottles.<\/p>\n

Satellite photo of location<\/a><\/p>\n

The flames set fire to the ceiling. Within seconds the blaze had spread, engulfing a crowded basement packed with revellers. Many were teenagers. One of the women described a crowd surge as people desperately tried to escape up a narrow flight of stairs.<\/p>\n

Ulysse Brozzo, 16, an instructor at a local ski school, said several of his friends were in the club at the time.<\/p>\n

He said he had spoken to some who were safe, but had yet to hear from others he knew were inside when the fire broke out. A friend of a friend was in a coma at Sion hospital. \u201cIt\u2019s a total tragedy,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were hundreds of people inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new year mass at the Catholic church of Montana Station to remember the victims of the fire at the Le Constellation on 1 January. Photograph: Antonio Calanni\/AP<\/p>\n

Video posted by survivors showed the blaze taking hold immediately above the bar. Other footage showed grim scenes of orange flames billowing from a ground-floor lounge and several people lying motionless on the street.<\/p>\n

The canton prosecutor for Valais, Beatrice Pilloud, said she could not comment on reports that lighted candles had caused the inferno. \u201cAn investigation is taking place. It will identify the exact circumstances of what happened,\u201d she said, confirming that the basement steps were very narrow. She said it was too early to draw any conclusions about emergency exits.<\/p>\n

\"'I'm‘I’m very worried’: residents wait as victim identification under way in Switzerland \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Gisler, the canton\u2019s police commander, said his officers arrived at the scene at 1.32am, two minutes after receiving an emergency call. He described the situation as \u201cunprecedented\u201d. A red alert was issued, with multiple firefighting teams, 42 ambulances and 13 helicopters sent to the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir first mission was to provide care to the victims \u2026 and direct them to the various hospitals. The firefighters at the same time secured the site,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The injured were dispatched to hospitals in Sion, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich. Parmelin \u2013 speaking in his first day in the job as Switzerland\u2019s new head of state \u2013 said some of those who survived were \u201cseverely injured\u201d. They had suffered serious burns, as well as damage to their lungs. Lausanne university hospital said it was treating 22 patients aged between 16 and 26.<\/p>\n

A hearse car in front of Le Constellation on Thursday. Photograph: Jean-Christophe Bott\/AP<\/p>\n

The hospital\u2019s general manager, Claire Charmet, said eight of them were resuscitated on arrival<\/a>. They were now being treated in critical and specialised care units. \u201cThis will be a long and intensive process, lasting several weeks, perhaps even months,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Investigators now have the grisly task of identifying the victims and taking DNA samples from their families. Some of those caught up in the fire were visiting the ski resort from neighbouring countries. Italy\u2019s foreign ministry said 16 of its nationals were missing and 12 were among the injured.<\/p>\n

The morning after the tragedy, two women held each other and wept in front of the police cordon outside Le Constellation, while mourners left flowers. The club itself, which is frequented by younger people and tourists, was surrounded by white police tents.<\/p>\n

\"VideoVideo dispatch: Crans-Montana mourns nightclub victims<\/p>\n

Shortly before 1pm a Swiss police forensics team entered the restricted zone. Behind the building, an apartment block \u2013 also called Le Constellation \u2013 had smashed windows where firefighters had attempted to let the smoke from the blaze escape.<\/p>\n

Crans-Montana is a bustling resort town of about 10,000 people perched high in the Valais canton of the Swiss Alps, with a view across the valley to the famed Matterhorn mountain. Unlike nearby Verbier, which attracts a wealthy anglophone crowd, Crans-Montana is popular mainly with wealthy Europeans.<\/p>\n

But Le Constellation itself was more of a cheap and cheerful bar for younger people and tourists.<\/p>\n

The fire inside Le Constellation, Crans-Montana. Photograph: X<\/p>\n

Brozzo, the ski instructor, said the venue was set over two floors, with a bar on the main floor and narrow stairs leading to a basement nightclub below, where he speculated it would have been possible for people to have become trapped and incapacitated from smoke inhalation.<\/p>\n

He said shisha pipes were available to smoke. \u201cWhat people are saying is that the charcoal on the shisha could have spilled and caused the fire,\u201d Brozzo said.<\/p>\n

Swiss officials called the blaze a embrasement g\u00e9n\u00e9ralis\u00e9. The French firefighting term describes how a fire can trigger the release of combustible gases. These then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would term a flashover or a backdraft.<\/p>\n

map of Switzerland<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking on Thursday morning, Mathias Reynard, the president of the Valais canton, said what should have been a moment of celebration \u201cturned into a nightmare\u201d. He said he was devastated by the tragedy. \u201cI can\u2019t hide from you that we are all shaken by what happened overnight in Crans,\u201d he told a press conference.<\/p>\n

Le Constellation opened in 2015 and could accommodate up to 300 people inside, with another 40 on a heated terrace, French media reported. The bar\u2019s Facebook and Instagram pages appear to have been deleted and are unavailable.<\/p>\n

The owner of the D\u00e9d\u00e9 clothing store, directly across the street from Le Constellation, said the venue was a popular destination for younger people \u2013 including the children of her friends, who would often drink there from as young as 14 years old.<\/p>\n

People gather outside Le Constellation bar on Thursday evening. Photograph: Denis Balibouse\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Fran\u00e7ois, 17, a ski instructor who said he had often partied at the bar, said new year parties were known as being more lax in terms of checking the age of bar entrants.<\/p>\n

The town relies heavily on a largely European clientele who come to ski, eat in several Michelin-starred restaurants and shop at Moncler and Louis Vuitton stores. It has about 3,000 hotel rooms and 10,000 residents.<\/p>\n

In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on people to show caution in the coming days. They urged them to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Switzerland will hold five days of mourning after an \u201cunprecedented\u201d fire tore through a crowded bar, killing about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-347017","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-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}