Swiss investigators are probing what caused afire in a bar at an Alpine ski resortthat left around 40 people dead and another 115 injured during aNew Year's celebration.
Most injuries, many of them serious, occurred when the blaze swept through the crowded bar less than two hours after midnight Thursday in southwesternSwitzerland.
The French foreign ministrysaid eight of its citizens were missing in a statement, and thatit could not rule out that French nationals were among the dead.
Read moreSwiss police say some 40 killed, 115 injured in NYE resort fire
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski andgolfvenue. Overnight, its crowded Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of potentially one of Switzerlands worst tragedies.
Crans-Montana is less than 5 kilometres from Sierre, Switzerland, where 28 people, including many children, were killed when a bus fromBelgiumcrashed inside a Swiss tunnel in 2012.
Heres what we know about the deadlyfire:
The blaze broke out around 1:30am Thursday inside the Le Constellation bar amid the holiday celebration.
Twowomentold French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.
People frantically tried to escape from the basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door, causing a crowd surge, one of the women said.
A young man at the scene said people smashed windows to escape the fire, some gravely injured, reported BFMTV. He said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames, likening what happened to a horror movie.
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theatre at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, said Mathias Reynard, head of the regionalgovernmentof the Valais Canton.
While officials said Thursday it was too early to determine the fire's cause, investigators have already ruled out that it could have been an attack.
Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage, said Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, at a news conference.
Work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families, according to Valais Cantonpolicecommander Frdric Gisler.
The Swiss officials called the blaze an embrasement gnralis, a French firefighting term describing how a blaze can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently and cause what English-speakingfirefighterswould call a flashover or a backdraft.
Victims suffered from serious burns and smoke inhalation. Some were flown to specialist hospitals across the country.
Authorities urged people to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require the already overwhelmed medical resources.
With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 metres in the heart of the Valais regions snowy peaks and pineforests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on theWorld Cupcircuit.
The resort will host the best mens and womens downhill racers, including Lindsey Vonn, for their final events before the Milan Cortina Olympics in February.
The towns Crans-sur-Sierre golf club, down the street from the bar, stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course.
(FRANCE 24 with AP and Reuters)
Originally published on France24
