Several dozen people are presumed dead and around 100 injured after a fire ripped through a bar in a ski resort in southern Switzerland, officials have said.
The fire broke out at around 01:30 (00:30 GMT) during new year celebrations in a bar called Le Constellation in Crans-Montana, police said.
People from multiple countries have been affected, according to Swiss authorities, and “significant work” will be needed to identify victims and return bodies to families.
Officials investigating the incident have not mentioned any cause, but categorically ruled out an attack.
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.
EPA/ShutterstockLocal media reports earlier on Thursday suggested pyrotechnics could have caused the incident, although this is unconfirmed.
Valais canton prosecutor general Beatrice Pilloud said an investigation was under way “to identify the circumstances which caused this dramatic situation to occur”.
She told the press conference “currently we are favouring a fire and at no time is there question of any attack”, adding out of respect for the families she cannot say more at this time.
Police initially referred to an explosion but later changed their definition to a fire, adding it was too early to speculate on the cause.
Asked about the cause at the news conference, regional security official Stéphane 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”.
Work is ongoing to identify the victims and return bodies to families as quickly as possible, Ms Pilloud said, adding: “To do that there is significant work which needs to be carried out. And this significant work will require the closure of the district.”
The Italian ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, said that it will take weeks to identify the dead.
A helpline has been set up for families: +41 848 112 117
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said: “A moment of joy turned into a tragedy that has touched the whole of Switzerland and abroad.”
Crans-Montana is a luxury ski resort, famous in the 1980s for hosting the World Cup skiing.
Le Constellation, which has been around for decades, has an upstairs with TV screens where people go and watch football matches, and a large bar downstairs for drinking and dancing.
The UK Foreign Office said its “thoughts are with all those injured and killed in the terrible tragedy” and consular staff were on standby to provide support to any British nationals affected.
