Nepal UK
Geneva - Around 40 people, including many youths, were killed and over 100 others injured after a fire tore through a crowded bar during a New Year's Eve party in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, officials said.
"We count around 40 people who have died and around 115 injured, most of them seriously," Frederic Gisler, police commander in the Valais canton in southwestern Switzerland, told reporters.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin described the disaster as "one of the worst tragedies that our country has ever known" and said most of the dead were young people.
The fire broke out at 1.30 am local time as revellers were celebrating in a bar called Le Constellation in the ski resort, which locals said was popular with teenagers.
The cause of the blaze, which was initially reported as an explosion, remains unclear but authorities said it appeared to be an accident rather than an attack.
Authorities warned that naming the victims or establishing a definitive death toll would take time because many of the bodies were badly burned. Experts were using dental and DNA records to try to identify the dead.
Two young French women who said they were in the bar told France's BFM TV that they saw the fire start in the basement section of the club after a bottle containing "birthday candles" was held up too close to the wooden ceiling.
"The fire spread across the ceiling super quickly," one of the two women, who identified themselves as Emma and Albane, said. The pair said they were able to climb a narrow staircase to the ground floor and escape the building.
Minutes later, the fire had reached the ground floor too, they said.
"We met the families this afternoon and it's terrible because to be in front of them with all their fear and apprehension and terrible anxiety and we don’t have all the answers. And we won’t have them straight away because identifying them will take time. It’s a terrible situation on the ground. Unimaginable," Mathias Reynard, president of the Valais cantonal government, said.
