About 40 killed and 115 injured in fire at bar in Crans-Montana ski resort in Switzerland

Police officers in the Crans-Montana resort inspect the area where the fire broke out (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

About 40 people were killed and another 115 injured, most of them seriously, during a new year celebration in a Swiss Alpine bar, police said.

Authorities did not immediately have an exact count of the deceased.

The fire ripped through the celebration at a bar in the Crans-Montana resort less than two hours after midnight on Thursday, police said.

The 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 potentially one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.

“Several tens of people” were presumed killed at the bar, Valais Canton police commander Frederic Gisler said during a news conference.

Work was under way to identify the victims and inform their families, but “that will take time and for the time being, it is premature to give you a more precise figure,” Mr Gisler said, adding that the community was “devastated”.

Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts had not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.

The cause of the fire is not yet known (Jean-Christophe Bott/AP)

“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Ms Pilloud said.

Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris who survived the blaze, described “total chaos” inside the bar.

One of his friends died and “two or three were missing”, he told The Associated Press.

He said he had not seen the fire start, but did see waitresses arrive with champagne bottles with sparklers, he said.

The teenager said he felt like he was suffocating and initially hid behind a table, then ran upstairs and tried to use a table to break an acrylic glass window. It fell out of its casing, allowing him to escape.

The Alpine town of Crans-Montana  is best known as an international ski and golf venue (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

He lost his jacket, shoes, phone and bank card while fleeing, but “I am still alive and it’s just stuff”, he said.

“I’m still in shock,” he added.

Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.

One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.

Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside.

The fire broke out at Le Constellation bar (Police Cantonale Valaisanne via AP)

The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames and likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street.

Officials described how the blaze likely triggered the release of combustible gases that ignited violently and caused what firefighters call a flashover or backdraft.

“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government of the Valais Canton, said.

The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theatre at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Mr Reynard said.

Crans-Montana is less than three miles (5km) from Sierre, Switzerland, where 28 people, including many children, were killed when a bus from Belgium crashed inside a Swiss tunnel in 2012.

A floral tribute left near the scene (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on the local population to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.

With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 metres in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit.

The resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers, including Lindsey Vonn, for their final events before the Milan Cortina Olympics in February.

The town’s Crans-sur-Sierre golf club stages the European Masters each August.

The Swiss blaze on Thursday came 25 years after a fire in the Dutch fishing town of Volendam on New Year’s Eve, which killed 14 people and injured more than 200 as they celebrated in a cafe.

Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup ski circuit (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone/AP)

Swiss president Guy Parmelin said in a social media post that the government’s “thoughts go to the victims, to the injured and their relatives, to whom it addresses its sincere condolences”.

Thursday was Mr Parmelin’s first day in office as the seven members of Switzerland’s government take turns holding the presidency for one year.

Out of respect for the families of the victims, he delayed a traditional New Year’s address to the nation meant to be broadcast on Thursday afternoon, Swiss broadcasters SRF and RTS reported.