At least 40 dead after fire sweeps through Swiss ski resort bar

By Elmira Aliieva and Carolin Sri-Narayana

(NBC) - At least 40 people are dead and more the 100 others were severely injured after a fire broke out during New Year’s Eve celebration at a bar in a Swiss Alpine resort, authorities said Thursday.

Calling it an "unprecedented tragedy," Valais canton police commander Frédéric Gisler warned the death toll could rise because many of the injured are in critical condition.

Meanwhile, Gisler said at a news conference, "The priority will be to identify those who lost their lives."

The president of the Swiss Confederation, Guy Parmelin, said that many of the victims were young people and the victims include Swiss residents as well as tourists from neighboring countries and elsewhere.

"Behind these numbers are faces, names, families, destinies brutally interrupted," Parmelin said at the press conference.

The fire that devoured the Le Constellation in the Alpine ski resort town of Crans-Montana was first reported around 1:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. ET Wednesday), Gisler said.

Investigators are still probing the cause of the blaze, but officials at the press conference said they don’t believe it was caused by an explosion and declined to speculate on whether it might have been sparked by festive sparklers.

“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” said Beatrice Pilloud, the Valais Canton attorney general.

Firefighters arrived on the scene within minutes and by 5 a.m. all the injured were receiving treatment and being taken to hospitals around the country, said Mathias Reynard, who is president of the State Council of the Valais canton.

“More than a hundred people were in the building, and we are seeing many injured and many dead,” Swiss police spokesperson Gaëtan Lathion said in an earlier interview with The Associated Press. “We’re just at the beginning of our investigation, but this is an internationally renowned ski resort with lots of tourists.”

NBC News verified footage posted to social media that showed the building ablaze, with thick smoke billowing into the air as crowds gathered around and some people ran toward the scene. Screaming could be heard in the background.

Another video posted to TikTok showed emergency services on scene in the aftermath of the blaze and the area sealed off with police tape.

Martin Meul, a reporter for Swiss German-language daily newspaper Blick told NBC New’s British broadcasting partner Sky News, that he was in a restaurant next door to Le Constellation when the fire broke out.

“I went out to see what happened and a lot of people were screaming and it was horrible,” he said. “A lot of people were trying to escape through the main door, he said. “I saw a lot of people on the floor and I think these people were dead,” he added.

Parmelin whose first day in office was on Thursday, wrote on X that the government’s “thoughts go to the victims, to the injured and their relatives, to whom it addresses its sincere condolences.” What was meant to be a moment of joy turned into mourning, he added.

Out of respect for victims’ families, he delayed a traditional New Year’s address to the nation meant to be broadcast Thursday afternoon, Swiss broadcasters SRF and RTS reported.

Italy’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Swiss police believed around 40 people had died in the fire. The victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns, it added. France’s foreign ministry said two French nationals were injured in the fire

The U.S. Embassy in Switzerland urged American citizens in the country to “notify family and friends of their safety,” in a post on X.

The number of injured was so large that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit capacity, Mathias Rénard, a regional councilor said at the same news conference. Patients were being transferred elsewhere, he said. Some of the victims were from other countries.

Beatrice Pilloud, the attorney general of the Valais canton, added that it was too early to determine the fire’s cause as experts had not been able to go inside the wreckage. “At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” she added.

In separate statement, police from the Valaisanne canton, or region, said a no-fly zone had been imposed over Crans-Montana, which sits in the region of Valais around two hours from the Swiss capital of Bern.

“Numerous emergency personnel from the police, fire brigade and rescue services immediately responded to provide assistance to the many affected individuals,” the statement said. A reception center and helpline have been set up for impacted families, it added.

Authorities also called on local residents to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require already overwhelmed medical resources.

The community in the heart of the Swiss Alps sits just 25 miles north of the Matterhorn. The municipality was formed only nine years ago, on Jan. 1, 2017, when multiple towns merged.

At the end of this month, it is set to host an international speed skiing championship — the FIS World Cup, where world’s best skiers will race each other downhill from the top of one of the mountains, according to the resort’s website.