‘Dozens’ killed in Swiss ski resort blaze: What we know

A blaze killed “dozens” of people and injured more than 100 others in a bar in a ski resort as partygoers celebrated the arrival of the new year in the early hours of Thursday morning, Swiss police say.

What happened?
A fire broke out at 1:30am (00:30 GMT) at Le Constellation, a bar in the centre of the luxury Alpine ski resort town of Crans-Montana in southwestern Switzerland, police said in a statement on Thursday.

Crans-Montana is about 200km south of the Swiss capital, Bern.

“There has been an explosion of unknown origin,” Gaetan Lathion, a police spokesperson in Wallis canton in southwestern Switzerland, told the AFP news agency.The bar is a popular tourist venue in the town. At the time of the incident, more than 100 people were present, Swiss media outlet Blick reported, quoting police.

What do we know about the victims?
During a news conference on Thursday, Frederic Gisler, the police commander in the Valais Canton in southwestern Switzerland, told reporters that “several dozens” of people were presumed dead in the incident, without specifying the exact number. He added that more than 100 people had been injured.

Later on Thursday morning, the Italian foreign ministry, quoting Swiss police, said it understood that about 40 people had died.

A medical source told broadcaster RTS that hospitals in French-speaking Switzerland had been overwhelmed with burn victims. Most of those injured were in a serious condition, regional councillor Mathias Renard said. Police said that some victims were from other countries.