Dozens of people were presumed dead and over 100 others were injured, most seriously, after a fire ripped through a New Year's Eve party in the resort town of Crans-Montana, police said Thursday.
The Crans-Montana 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 killed at the bar, Le Constellation, Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference.
Swiss police believe around 40 people died, the Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Work is underway 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.
Helicopters and ambulances rushed to the scene to assist victims, including some from different countries, officials said.
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV that they were inside when they saw a barman carrying a barmaid on his shoulders. The barmaid was holding a lit candle in a bottle that set fire to the wooden ceiling. The flames quickly spread and collapsed the 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 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 English-speaking firefighters call a flashover or backdraft.
"This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare," said Mathias Rénard, head of the regional government.
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Rénard said.
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 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) 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 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 on a picturesque course.
Crans-Montana is less than 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Sierre, Switzerland, where 28 people including many children were killed when a bus from Belgium crashed inside a Swiss tunnel in 2012.
The Swiss blaze on Thursday came 25 years after an inferno 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.
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 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 address to the nation meant to be broadcast Thursday afternoon, Swiss broadcasters SRF and RTS reported.
