One narrow staircase, one door and champagne with fireworks: this is how a party in a Swiss cellar bar turned into a fire with at least 40 deaths

Champagne bottles with fireworks candles on them. A crowded basement bar. One narrow staircase and one door to the street. These ingredients turned New Year’s Eve at ‘Le Constellation’ in the fashionable Swiss ski village of Crans-Montana into a deadly cocktail. After the fire explosion at 1:30 am, the hard balance followed: 40 dead and 115 injured – mainly teenagers and twenty-somethings who wanted to start 2026 partying. A reconstruction, told by a Flemish eyewitness and two French girls who survived the tragedy, with footage from during and after the fire.

ttn-3