Name: 'Several' people killed by fire in Swiss ski resort bar, police say | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-01-01T16:58:47.000Z
Duration: 14 min 21 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Police in Switzerland have confirmed several people have been killed and several others injured in a fire at a ski resort took place at around 1:30am local time in the town of Crown, Montana in a bar called the Constellation, which is popular with tourists.

Social media footage shows a fierce fire burning at a bar where New Year's Eve celebrations have been taking place.

Police say the cause of the fire is unknown.

The these are the latest pictures that we've just received from a BBC journalist who is in Crown Montana.

As you can see, the area near the bar is closed off.

Police say that no fly zone is in force and to repeat, they've not confirmed the cause of the explosion, but

it happened during New Year's Eve celebrations.

Let's speak now to our correspondent Will Vernon who's been speaking to the local police today.

Can you just talk us through Will, what you've been hearing?

I spoke to the police a little bit earlier who said that this Incident happened at 0130, so 1:30 in the morning local time in a bar called La Consolation in the town of Cron, Montana.

They said that the cause of the, of this explosion or fire, it's not entirely clear at the moment whether it was an explosion or a fire.

They're saying that the cause of it isn't clear at this time.

Now this resort is a pretty upmarket ski resort.

It's popular with British tourists in the Valais region of Switzerland, that it's a, it's a year round resort so you know, popular with tourists all year.

And the resort itself is actually due to hold a pretty prestigious speed skiing international competition at the end of January.

So you know, it's a, it's a prestigious upmarket location.

I was looking at some of the pictures online of the bar itself, La Consolation, where this incident took place.

There's also been footage uploaded to social media of the incident itself where you can see a large fire in the building where the bar is and a huge emergency service presence there.

A little a short while ago the police released an official statement on their website as well where they said that the area has been cordoned off, emergency vehicles are in attendance there.

There's even been a no fly zone imposed in the area.

So clearly a very serious incident that's taken place there.

But, but you know, details still coming in.

Most importantly of all, of course, exactly how many people have been killed in this incident.

Initially it was being described as an explosion, wasn't It.

There had been some talk of perhaps fireworks being involved.

When I first spoke to a police spokesperson, shortly after, you know, we got the first reports of this incident happening.

The police used the word explosion with me and as I understand it, with several other media.

A short time ago, the police released an official statement on their website where there is no mention of the word explosion.

So it's not entirely clear what exactly happened.

You know, as you say, local media are saying that this incident took place during a New Year's Eve party in the barn, that there were more than 100 people in attendance.

The police said statement confirms that there were more.

And there has been speculation that perhaps this fire was started by some sort of fireworks or pyrotechnics in that party, but

There's no official confirmation of what.

So we'll have to wait a little while longer.

We're expecting the police to give a news conference soon, so perhaps there'll be more details during that about what exactly caused this fire.

There's been a huge response from the emergency services, hasn't there, Will?

In the police statement, which I'm just opening now, police is mentioned and ambulance services as well, firefighters.

As I say, a no fly zone has been imposed in the area.

So clearly a huge response from the emergency services at this time of year.

Obviously it was New Year's Eve, the peak, really, of the winter season in a popular bar right in the center of town.

You know, this would have been packed at the time of the incident.

Of how many casualties, but the word that the police spokesperson used with me earlier was several dead.

Now, it's not clear how many, you know, how many have died, but

he did say several dead and several injured.

So we'll have to wait and see what kind of figures we get a bit later.

Will Vernon for us there in the newsroom.

Well, we can go now to our colleague, Silvia Costello, who is in the Crown Montana Resort now.

Can you tell us what you've been hearing?

So I'm here, as you say, in Kranzmanntown.

I'm standing at the police cordon here you can see behind me the site of this explosion.

The Consolacion Bar is kind of to the left.

There now, literally in the last few minutes, there have been.

The police have been putting up these white screens as they continue working their forensic work at the Constellacion.

So far, the details coming out are very small.

We don't know the number of casualties yet.

There is a fear, however, by the size of this operation, and

I've just spoken to a Swiss journalist who off the record said they are expecting a quite a high death toll.

We don't know what happened in the bar last night.

What we do know is that at 1:30 there was an explosion.

I spoke to some people who heard the explosion, and then they heard hours of ambulances afterwards.

Of course, this is New Year, so there would have been fireworks.

And one man told me he actually wondered whether the ambulances were just because people had taken, like drunk too much or kind of reveled too much.

But unfortunately, a scene of absolute chaos unfolded here last night.

I drove past the Constellation bar just half an hour before the explosion happened.

Like in many other countries, here in Switzerland, people have to have their own fireworks.

if you're on any valley, you can see fireworks throughout the whole valley.

And it's just a real atmosphere of shock here today.

And the people who would have been in that bar at the time would have been a mixture of local people and tourists.

So the consolation bar is a real institution here.

It's been around since I was a teenager, since I was.

This is quite a nice sort of posh ski resort.

It was famous in the 80s for hosting the World cup skiing, and it's coming back next year.

So it's a really sort of happening place.

Quite a lot of the bars are on that side, sort of quite luxury.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

'Several' people killed by fire in Swiss ski resort bar, police say | BBC News

sort

absolutely

infrastructure

common