BERN, Switzerland
Around 40 people have died after a fire ripped through a bar in a ski resort in southern Switzerland, police have said. A further 115 people are injured, many of them "severely".
The fire broke out at around 01:30 (00:30 GMT) during new year celebrations in a bar called Le Constellation in Crans-Montana.
Officials investigating the incident have not mentioned any cause, but categorically ruled out an attack.
People from multiple countries have been affected. Regional police commander Frédéric Gisler has said the priority in the coming days was to identify those who have died "so that their bodies can be returned rapidly" to their families.
Ten helicopters, 40 ambulances and 150 emergency responders were sent overnight to the scene of the fire in the Valais region, which is popular with tourists.
Most of the injured experienced severe burns and were sent to Valais hospital, said Mathias Reynard, the region's council leader, in a press conference on Thursday morning.
Its intensive care unit had reached full capacity and Reynard said the local community must take extra care to avoid needing hospital treatment unnecessarily.
Some people have been taken to hospitals in Lausanne and Zurich which have specialist burns units.
A spokesperson for Lausanne University Hospital said they were treating 22 patients with burn injuries, while Zurich University Hospital said it was treating 12 patients for burns.
Details are still emerging, and it is not yet known the precise number of people who have been killed and injured, their nationalities, the cause of the fire or how many people were in the bar. Officials have, however, confirmed that several nationalities were involved.
The Italian foreign ministry said information from Swiss police indicated around 40 people had died.
Police at the press conference said "several dozen" were presumed dead, but did not give a more precise number when responding to questions from the media.
No comments:
Post a Comment