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During a recent New Year’s celebration in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, sparklers on Champagne bottles ignited a devastating fire in Le Constellation, a crammed basement bar nestled within an Alpine ski resort. As the flames spread throughout the bar and torched its wooden ceilings, teenagers and young adults struggled to escape up a narrow staircase, ultimately resulting in a crowd surge, two witnesses reported.
“People were collapsing. We were doing everything we could to save them,” 14-year-old Marc-Antoine Chavanon told the Associated Press. “There was one of our friends: She was struggling to get out. She was all burnt. You can’t imagine the pain I saw.”
In the days following the fire, Swiss authorities have confirmed that 40 people died in the accident, the majority of whom were in their teens and 20s, mostly hailing from Switzerland, France, and Italy. Officials have also announced that an additional 116 people were injured, 83 of whom are still being treated for severe burns. Recent police reports further revealed that Le Constellation had not undergone safety checks for five years, provoking significant public backlash. Jacques and Jessica Moretti, the bar’s owners, are currently under investigation for manslaughter, bodily harm, and arson through negligence.
“We bitterly regret this,” Nicolas Feraud, the mayor of Crans-Montana, said during a recent news conference, commenting that he couldn’t explain why the bar hadn’t been checked in years. Venues, per the BBC, should be checked every year. “We’re profoundly sorry about that and I know how hard that will be for the families.”
“The first tier of this tragedy is seeing young lives ending in this way, or being hurt and bearing scars forever,” Romain Jordan, a firefighter who worked to extinguish the blaze, told The Guardian. “Then you quickly understand that it perhaps happened because of human mistakes… and the worst thing is that the authorities were perhaps complacent. So all of these layers add up to an incomprehensible nightmare, making it difficult to accept.”
Jordan added: “The whole world is looking at us because, if it can happen in Switzerland, one of the richest countries in the world, where could it not happen? What led to this tragedy and how can we make sure that it never happens anywhere else?”
Investigations into the accident are still ongoing, but the tragedy has already inspired countless tributes, including a day of mourning in Switzerland as a nation and a memorial ceremony in Crans-Montana itself. Earlier this week, hundreds of skiers also gathered at the ski resort, scaling its nearby mountain. According to The New York Times, many of the skiers staying at the resort were children originally scheduled for races in the coming days. The tribute hoped to honor these victims in particular, in which skiers assembled into a heart-shaped formation.
Scroll down to watch the beautiful tribute that countless skiers took part in.
A group of skiers created a heart-shaped tribute to the 40 victims of a devastating New Year’s fire that spread through an Alpine bar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
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Sources: What to know about the Swiss Alpine bar fire that killed 40; ‘An incomprehensible nightmare’: grief turns to anger over Swiss bar fire as Le Constellation owner arrested; Swiss ski bar not inspected for five years before deadly fire, mayor says; Swiss Bar Hit by Deadly Fire Was Not Inspected for 6 Years, Authorities Say; What We Know About the New Year’s Day Fire in Switzerland; Skiers create heart-shaped tribute for Switzerland fire victims; Skiers Make Mountaintop Tribute to Swiss Fire Victims
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