A fire broke out at the Crans-Montana ski resort in Switzerland on the night of January 1. As a result of the incident, about 40 people died and about 115 others were injured, local police chief Frederick Giesler said. The fire broke out at around 01:30 local time (03:30 Moscow time) at the nightclub located in the basement of Le Constellation bar. According to people who witnessed the tragedy, there were about 200 people there at the time, including minors and young men between 15 and 20 years old. People injured in the fire were taken to hospitals in Sion, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich. Many of them are in serious condition. The head of the state government, Matthias Reynard, did not rule out the possibility that the government would have to seek help from other countries to treat burn patients. Cause of the fire As Italian Ambassador to Berne Gian Lorenzo Cornado reported on Rai News 24 television channel, the cause of the fire was firecrackers. “The incident occurred because firecrackers were thrown into the suspended ceiling and caught fire,” the diplomat noted. Previously, radio station Rhône FM also reported that fireworks could be the cause of the fire. Eyewitnesses to the incident told BFMTV that the fire broke out after waiters lit one of the guests' birthday candles and placed them on champagne bottles, then brought one of them too close to the wooden ceiling. “In just a few seconds, the entire nightclub caught fire. We all ran out screaming,” witnesses added about the tragedy. She clarified that the front door was quite narrow, so many people were trapped in the room where the fire occurred. There was a stampede in the club. A doctor working at the scene told RTS that he had never seen anything similar. “There was a terrible panic there. It was like the Bataclan, only without weapons. It was surprising how many people were there; people lying everywhere, everyone burned,” the man noted. He added that many of the victims were also poisoned by toxic fumes. Some people left the bar and suffocated on the street. Among the victims were foreigners. Among the victims, according to the head of the Valais state security agency, Stefan Gantzer, were citizens of other countries. The French Foreign Ministry has confirmed that at least two French people were injured as a result of the incident. The head of the Italian Foreign Ministry, Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani, also said that about 12-15 Italian citizens were injured and about 15 others were listed as missing. Russian Consul General in Geneva Igor Popov said the Russian Consulate was in contact with the Valais state government, but there was still no information on whether there were Russians among the dead and injured. He said identifying the victims will take time.
