‘People smashing windows...It was like a horror movie’: Witnesses recall deadly Swiss bar fire

Crans-Montana: A devastating fire tore through a packed New Year celebration at a bar in the Swiss Alpine resort of Crans-Montana early Thursday, leaving dozens feared dead and around 100 people injured, many of them critically, according to police.

What began as a festive night at the popular Le Constellation bar turned into scenes of panic and horror less than two hours after midnight, as flames spread rapidly through the venue, which was crowded with revellers welcoming the New Year.

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Eyewitnesses described to French broadcaster BFMTV how the blaze may have started. Two women said they were inside the bar when they saw a barman carrying a barmaid on his shoulders. The barmaid was reportedly holding a lit candle inside a bottle, which ignited the wooden ceiling. The fire spread within moments, causing the ceiling to collapse, they said.

One of the women recalled a terrifying rush to escape as people trapped in a basement nightclub tried to flee up a narrow staircase and through a small exit, triggering a deadly crowd surge.

Another witness told BFMTV he saw people smashing windows to escape the inferno, with several suffering severe injuries. He described panicked parents racing to the scene in cars, desperately trying to find out whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said around 20 people were scrambling to escape the smoke and flames, adding that the scene looked like something out of a horror movie as he watched from across the street.

Officials said the fire likely caused the release of combustible gases, which then ignited violently, creating what firefighters describe as a flashover or backdraft.

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

The scale of the tragedy quickly overwhelmed local medical facilities. Reynard said the number of injured was so high that the intensive care unit and operating theatre at the regional hospital reached full capacity within a short time.

Crans-Montana, known internationally as a ski and golf resort, lies less than five kilometres from Sierre, where 28 people, many of them children, were killed in a bus crash inside a Swiss tunnel in 2012.

With the region currently crowded with tourists for the ski season, authorities have urged residents and visitors to exercise caution in the coming days to avoid further accidents, as medical resources remain under severe strain.