MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Switzerland declared five days of mourning for the victims of a New Year's Eve fire that tore through a bar at a luxury ski resort in the Swiss Alps.
A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
Authorities say at least 40 people have died and more than 100 people are injured, many of them seriously.
MARTIN: NPR's Ruth Sherlock is our Rome correspondent, and she's with us now to tell us more about this. Good morning, Ruth.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So what can you tell us about the latest information?
SHERLOCK: Well, an investigation is underway in the resort town of Crans-Montana in the Swiss Alps. Officials do say this was not a deliberate attack. And overnight, mourners gathered in freezing temperatures, holding vigils and laying candles and flowers outside the bar. This bar, Le Constellation, was a favored hangout for young people, including sometimes teenagers as young as 15, which only adds to the horror of this, Michel. The fire happened during a crowded New Year's Eve celebration. At about 1:30, smoke was reported as coming out onto the street. Police say emergency services got there within minutes, but it was already too late. The regional intensive care ward is full, and some of those with the most severe burns have been flown to Italy for specialist treatment. Switzerland's president, Guy Parmelin, has called the incident one of the worst tragedies that Switzerland has experienced, and flags will be lowered for five days.
MARTIN: You know, we've been hearing from people who were in or near the bar that night. What are they saying?
SHERLOCK: Well, I mean, just awful eyewitness accounts. This was a basement nightclub, and 16-year-old Axel Clavier described trying to get out from there to the BBC.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AXEL CLAVIER: (Speaking French).
SHERLOCK: He says "we thought we were going to suffocate because of the smoke. We didn't know where to exit. There was a huge crowd, and I was alone. I told myself I wasn't going to make it." He eventually did manage to get up the one narrow staircase and smash a window to escape. Witnesses outside the bar described seeing people coming out, some of them with their clothes on fire. And this is high season for skiing. You know, there's about 3 million visitors to this town each year, according to official statistics. It's believed that there are people from several countries among the dead. Italy says six citizens are missing after the fire and 13 are wounded.
MARTIN: So you were telling us earlier that the officials don't believe that this was deliberately set. So what do we know about the cause of the fire?
SHERLOCK: Well, officials have not yet confirmed a cause for the fire. Two women who escaped the club told French media that they saw a barman carrying a barmaid on his shoulders and that she'd been holding a champagne bottle with lit sparklers and that had set fire to the wooden ceiling. Videos on social media appear to show flames spreading above the bar. And a YouTube video from 2024 posted by a channel with the bar's name shows women wearing motorcycle helmets and carrying bottles of alcohol topped with sparklers as they walked through the establishment. So another question is whether the bar was over full beyond its capacity of 300 people. There's clearly lots to be investigated here. For now, officials say the priority is to identify the bodies of the victims, and they say that that itself could take many weeks still.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Ruth Sherlock. Ruth, thank you.
SHERLOCK: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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