Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 100 injured, most of them seriously, following a fire at a bar in a Swiss Alps resort town during a New Year’s celebration, police said on Thursday.
“Several tens of people” were killed at the bar, Le Constellation, Valais Canton police commander Frederic Gisler said during a news conference.
Work is 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,” Gisler said, adding that the community is “devastated”.
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.
An evening of celebration turns tragic
Officials called the blaze an “embrasement generalise,” a firefighting term describing how a blaze can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would call a flashover or a backdraft.
“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said Mathias Renard, head of the regional government.
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theatre at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Renard said.