Police say some 100 people gathered for New Year celebrations at Le Constellation bar
\n GENEVA
\n \u201cSeveral dozen\u201d people are believed to have died and around 100 were injured when a fire ripped through a crowded bar in the luxury Swiss ski resort town of Crans-Montana, police said Thursday.
\n\u201cSeveral dozen people are presumed to have died,\u201d Frederic Gisler, police commander in the Wallis canton in southwestern Switzerland, told reporters.
\nPolice, firefighters and rescuers rushed to the popular resort, one of the top-ranked ski destinations in Europe, with Swiss media reporting the toll could soar into the dozens.
\nA police spokesman named the bar as Le Constellation, which has a capacity of 300 people and another 40 people on its terrace, according to the Crans-Montana website.
\nThe spokesman said some 100 people had gathered there for New Year celebrations.
\nA tourist from New York filmed bright orange flames pouring from the bar, and told AFP he saw people running and screaming in the dark.
\n\u201cSeveral people lost their lives and others were injured,\u201d the police statement said, describing the incident as \u201cserious\u201d and adding that \u201ca major emergency response is underway\u201d.
\n\u201cA large contingent of police, firefighters, and rescue workers immediately went to the scene to assist the numerous victims,\u201d it said.
\n\u201cThe operation is still ongoing.\u201d
\nAmbulances were still parked outside the bar hours later, and broken windows could be seen. Local media described a \u201csmell of burning still in the air\u201d.
\nSwiss daily Blick cited a doctor at the scene suggesting that the death toll could be in the \u201cdozens\u201d.
\nRegional daily Le Nouvelliste also said its sources were describing \u201ca heavy toll\u201d, with \u201caround 40 dead and 100 injured\u201d.
\nSwiss media suggested that the fire may have started when pyrotechnics were used during a concert, but police siad the cause was unkown.
\nPolice spokesman Gaetan Lathion told AFP earlier there had first been an \u201cexplosion of unknown origin\u201d at around 1:30 am (0030 GMT) at Le Constellation.
\nPolice said the areas was \u201ccompletely closed to the public\u201d, and that \u201ca no-fly zone over Crans Montana has been imposed\u201d.
\n\u201cThe party was in full swing… music and champagne flowing freely,\u201d a resident who said they lived nearby told 24 heures, a Lausanne newspaper.
\nBut as news of the fire broke, they said, the carefree mood vanished and people began gathering in the street. \u201cWe could hear the sirens in the distance. Around me, people were stunned, worried, silent.\u201d
\n\u201cWe heard helicopters all night long,\u201d another neighbour told 24 heures.
\n\u201cWith the fireworks, we didn\u2019t understand what was going on at first. Then we saw the smoke. It\u2019s terrible, a lot of young people go to that bar.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police say some 100 people gathered for New Year celebrations at Le Constellation bar GENEVA \u201cSeveral dozen\u201d people are believed to have died and around 100 were injured when a fire ripped through a crowded bar in the luxury Swiss ski resort town of Crans-Montana, police said Thursday. \u201cSeveral dozen people are presumed to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n