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01/02 07:40 CST Here's what to know about a deadly fire at a Swiss Alpine bar's
New Year celebration
Here's what to know about a deadly fire at a Swiss Alpine bar's New Year
celebration
By JAMEY KEATEN, STEFANIE DAZIO and JOHN LEICESTER
Associated Press
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) --- Swiss investigators are probing what caused
a fire in a bar at an Alpine ski resort that left around 40 people dead and
another 115 injured during a New Year's celebration.
Most injuries, many of them serious, occurred when the blaze swept through the
crowded bar less than two hours after midnight Thursday in southwestern
Switzerland.
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue.
Overnight, its crowded Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry
into the site of one of Switzerland's worst tragedies.
While officials said Thursday it was too early to determine the fire's cause,
investigators have already ruled out the possibility of an attack.
Here's what we know about the deadly fire:
A frantic attempt to escape The blaze broke out around 1:30 a.m. Thursday during a holiday celebration inside the Le Constellation bar. Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster. People frantically tried to escape from the basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door, causing a crowd surge, one of the women said. A young man at the scene said people smashed windows to escape the fire, some gravely injured, reported BFMTV. He said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames. Gianni Campolo, a Swiss 19-year-old who was in Crans-Montana on vacation, rushed to the bar to help first responders after receiving a call from a friend who escaped the inferno. He described a scene of people trapped on the ground, severely wounded and burned. "I have seen horror and I don't know what else would be worse than this," Campolo told TF1. The blaze triggered a flashover or backdraft The Swiss officials called the blaze an "embrasement gnralis," a French firefighting term describing how a blaze can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would call a flashover or a backdraft. The injured suffered from serious burns and smoke inhalation. Some were flown to specialist hospitals across the country. Authorities urged people to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require the already overwhelmed medical resources. Italian and French nationals are among the missing The severity of the burns has made it very difficult to identify bodies, bringing fresh agony for families who now must hand over DNA samples to authorities. In some cases, wallets and any ID documents inside turned to ash in the flames. Emanuele Galeppini, a promising 17-year-old Italian golfer who competed internationally, is officially listed as one of Italy's missing nationals. His uncle Sebastiano Galeppini told Italian news agency ANSA that their family is awaiting the DNA checks, though the Italian Golf Federation on its website announced that he had died. Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said 13 Italian citizens were injured and six remained missing by midday Friday. Galeppini's name was on the missing persons list. France's foreign ministry said eight French people are missing and another nine are among the injured. Top-flight French soccer team FC Metz said one of its trainee players, 19-year-old Tahirys Dos Santos, was badly burned and has been transferred by plane to Germany for treatment. A top venue for the world's best athletes With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) in the heart of the Valais region's snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit. The resort will host the best men's and women's downhill racers, including Lindsey Vonn, for their final events before the Milan Cortina Olympics in February. The town's Crans-sur-Sierre golf club, down the street from the bar, stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course. ___ Dazio reported from Berlin and Leicester reported from Paris. Geir Moulson in Berlin, Graham Dunbar in Geneva and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report. |
