Ben Tobias
Around 40 people have died and 115 people are injured following a fire in a ski resort in south-west Switzerland, police say.
Authorities said several nationalities were likely involved in the New Year’s Day fire, which happened at 01:30 local time (00:30 GMT) in a bar called Le Constellation in the resort of Crans-Montana.
It is being treated as a fire and there is “no question” of an attack, the region’s chief prosecutor said.
Switzerland’s President Guy Parmelin has called it “one of the worst tragedies that our country has experienced”.
A helpline has been set up for concerned families: +41 848 112 117
Here’s what we know so far.
What do we know about the victims?
At a news conference on Thursday afternoon police said around 40 people were killed in the fire and 115 people were injured.
Around 80-100 of those are in a critical condition, regional security official Stéphane Ganzer told RTL TV on Friday, adding that the death toll could rise.
The injured have been transported to hospitals across Switzerland and in other countries.
Work is ongoing to identify the victims and return bodies to families as quickly as possible, the region’s attorney general Beatrice Pilloud said, but officials have warned that it could take days or even weeks to identify the victims.
People from several countries are believed to be involved. The Italian foreign ministry says six Italian nationals are currently missing, with 13 others in hospital.
The French foreign ministry said eight of its citizens were missing and that it could not rule out that French nationals were among the dead.
French media have reported that at least two of the injured are French nationals.
French football club FC Metz said one of its youth players was “severely burned” in the fire. Tahirys Dos Santos, 19, has been airlifted to a hospital in Germany for treatment, the club said in a statement.
The UK embassy in Switzerland says it is monitoring the situation but it has not been approached for assistance.
Consular staff are on standby to support any British nationals affected, a Foreign Office statement said.
What caused the fire?
The cause is currently unknown but authorities say initial evidence does not suggest an attack.
Asked about earlier reports of an explosion, Mr Ganzer said it “is not the detonation of an explosive device that causes the fire, it is the fire which, as it develops, causes an explosion and a general conflagration of the premises”.
Two French nationals who said they were in the bar at the time described seeing a waitress put a birthday candle on top of a champagne bottle.
“One of the candles was held too close to the ceiling, which caught fire. In a matter of seconds, the entire ceiling was ablaze. Everything was made of wood.” Emma and Albane told French media outlet BFMTV.
They described the evacuation as “very difficult” because the escape route was “narrow” and the stairs to get outside “even narrower”.
In a news conference on Thursday, Ms Pilloud did not confirm if the staircases were narrow, adding that investigations would assess whether they were in line with requirements. She said it was too early to comment on any safety failures.
What do we know about Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana?
Le Constellation is a large bar in the the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana which has been around for many years.
Although the resort itself is quite upmarket, Le Constellation was not particularly posh, the BBC’s Silvia Costeloe reported from the resort.
Upstairs, there is an area with TV screens where people go to watch football matches. Downstairs is a big bar where people were likely drinking and dancing.
It could hold up to 300 people and had a small terrace, although it is unknown how many people were there at the time of the fire.
The Christmas and New Year holidays are one of the busiest times of the year for Alpine ski resorts, and it is likely the bar was full of Swiss people and tourists celebrating the start of 2026.
A promotional video posted on YouTube for Le Constellation bar, published in May 2024, showed women in motorcycle helmets walking through the bar while carrying sparklers in alcohol bottles above their heads.
The caption, written in French, read: “The Constellation Crans-Montana welcomes you every day from 9am to 2am, 365 days a year without interruption.”
Correction 2 January: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the attorney general said the staircases appeared to be narrow. This was a result of an error in the live broadcast translation of the press conference and the story has since been amended.
