The ski resort in Switzerland where the fire in a bar where New Year’s Eve was being celebrated has marked the beginning of the new year. The incident has claimed the lives of at least 40 people, many of them youngand a hundred injured remain in critical condition. Some victims are being treated in hospitals in neighboring countries.
For now, the investigation points to a flare as a possible origin of the fire and to the narrowness of a staircase as the reason why many attendees could not go outside.
Apparently, in the premises they would have used champagne bottles with sparklers attached during the celebration of the festival.
The EFE agency, which has collected testimonies in Crans-Montana, indicates that this has become fashionable and everything indicates that “a waitress climbs on the shoulders of one of her colleagues carrying in her hands one of those bottles with flares, whose sparks reached the ceiling, where the fire starts.”
The flames spread quickly and in addition, the staircase that was the only way out of the basement where the party was being held was “shaped like an hourglass, wide at the ends, but quite narrow in the middle“.
This was stated by Alain, a 23-year-old employee of the municipality of Crans Montana who was at the party for a while. He left around 1:30, half an hour before the fire, because he worked the next day
According to EFE, he confirmed that several bottles had been lit with flares and that the central part of the only access was very narrow: “Two children could pass at the same time, but not two adults.”
Spain offers its help
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Jose Manuel Albaresconveyed his condolences this Friday to his Swiss counterpart, Ignazio Cassis.
He has also offered Spain’s help to shelter the injured if necessary.
Albares has spoken by phone with his Swiss counterpart. “Our thoughts are with the victims, their loved ones and all the Swiss people in these complicated moments,” Albares stated in his X account.
According to the minister, “To date there is no record of Spanish victims“. From the first moment, both the consular emergency division in the Ministry and the Embassy in Switzerland are mobilized to act.
