Switzerland will observe a national day of mourning today for the 40 people, many of them teenagers, killed when fire tore through the Le Constellation bar during New Year’s celebrations in the ski resort of Crans-Montana. A minute of silence is set for 2 p.m. local time, to be followed by church bells ringing across the Alpine nation.
The government called the silence a “testament to the shared grief felt by the entire nation with all the families and friends directly affected.” The ceremony will be livestreamed on large screens in Crans-Montana, including at the congress center that for days became a hub for families searching for missing loved ones.
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Swiss President Guy Parmelin, who has called the blaze “one of the worst tragedies that our country has experienced,” will preside, joined by his French and Italian counterparts. France and Italy lost nine and six nationals respectively in the fire. Senior officials from Belgium, Luxembourg, Serbia and the European Union are also due to attend.
The inferno broke out during a New Year party in the bar’s basement, where prosecutors believe champagne bottles with sparklers were raised too close to sound insulation foam on the ceiling. Experts say the material appears to have been highly flammable and likely contributed to a flashover — a near-simultaneous ignition of everything in the enclosed space — that trapped many inside.
Of the 40 dead and 116 injured, most were Swiss, but a total of 19 nationalities were among the victims. Half of those killed were under 18, including some as young as 14. Eighty-three people remain hospitalized, with the most severely burned airlifted to specialist centers in Switzerland and abroad.
Video from the scene showed young people smashing windows and scrambling to escape as smoke and flames spread in seconds. A clip broadcast by Swiss public broadcaster RTS this week suggested the danger had been known for years: during a 2019 New Year’s Eve event, an employee can be heard warning, “Watch out for the foam!” as bottles with sparklers were brought out.
Scrutiny is intensifying over safety lapses. Municipal authorities acknowledged Tuesday that no fire safety inspections had been carried out at Le Constellation since 2019, prompting public outrage. Photos taken by the owners indicate the soundproofing foam had been added during renovations in 2015.
The French owners, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, are under investigation on suspicion of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence. They have been summoned for questioning today, according to sources close to the probe, but have not been detained. In a statement Tuesday, the couple said they were “devastated and overwhelmed with grief” and pledged their “full cooperation” with investigators.
Authorities say the inquiry will examine the responsibilities of local officials as well as the owners, including why so many minors were in the bar and whether required fire safety standards were followed. “This video is staggering,” said Romain Jordan, a lawyer representing several families, arguing it showed there was long-standing “awareness of this risk — and that possibly this risk was accepted.”
As Switzerland pauses to mourn today, the ceremony underscores a national reckoning over how a festive New Year gathering in a beloved ski resort turned into a catastrophe — and whether the tragedy could have been averted.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
