Anyone who drives up the mountain towards Crans-Montana early on Saturday morning from Sierre, Switzerland, will not notice much of the drama that took place three days earlier. Lots of traffic down the mountain, little traffic up the mountain. There is a scheduled bus that picks up a single passenger in a ski outfit at remote stops. Furthermore, it is quiet.
On New Year’s Eve, around half past two, a devastating fire broke out in the packed basement of café Le Constellation in the center of the Crans section of the village. At least forty people died, including a fourteen-year-old. More than a hundred visitors were seriously injured – many are still feared for their lives. They had come to celebrate the new year – and ended up in hell.
The first sign of the disaster is a large Swiss flag flying at half-mast on the small island in the middle of Lake Grenon, which separates Crans from Montana. The immense red cloth flutters gently in a chilly winter breeze.
Also read
About forty dead and more than a hundred injured in explosion in Swiss bar: ‘One of the worst tragedies ever in the country’
On this Saturday – changeover day for most winter sports enthusiasts – it is remarkably quiet in fashionable Crans. There is not much interest in going skiing. Packed cars and vans, many with international license plates – Italians, French, Dutch, an occasional Brit – drive back into the valley on their way home. Uphill there is considerably less traffic. Have people canceled their winter sports? Or is it just much quieter now that the Christmas holidays are over?
No cancellations yet
“We have not received any notices of cancellation yet,” says an employee of the Office du tourisme, the local tourist office, less than a 500-meter walk from the crash site. However, the agency has received many calls and emails from concerned tourists in recent days. Can they still come and enjoy winter sports? Are ski lifts and restaurants closed due to the disaster?
The young employee, late twenties at most, is reluctant to speak to journalists and does not want to give his name. He does want to say what he answers to all those questions: that everyone can continue to come to the mountain village. “It’s terrible what happened,” he says, “but we’ll have to get used to it.”
Crans-Montana tries to resume normal life. The village is composed of five villages of which Crans-sur-Sierre and Montana are the largest. More than ten thousand inhabitants live there. Their lives revolve around tourism: winter sports enthusiasts in winter, hikers and golfers in summer – an estimated 3 million visitors per year, who have to feed the economy in just a few months. If tourists stay away, says the tourist office employee, they can close down. “We will have to get on with our lives, the shops and cafes will open again, and so will we.”
People mourn the victims of the fire on New Year’s Eve at a memorial site near the bar Le Constellation in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Photo Umit Bektas / Reuters
The village itself is serenely quiet. The people walking around are silent. They do their shopping in silence in the Migros, smoke a cigarette on the street, grab a table for coffee or lunch in one of the many bars of the Station de Haut-Plateau, just below the central ski lift. The many luxury shops – fashion stores, the major Swiss watch brands – are also open but have hardly any customers.
Where in an average ski resort music sounds everywhere, from cafes, from terraces, and tourists cluck enthusiastically on their way to the slopes, in Crans-Montana it is now almost silent. The après-ski bar Zerodix, popular with Dutch people, right next to the central ski lift, gently puts on its first record at 2 p.m. Dancing in the moonlight. The café-restaurant was once founded by Rotterdam entrepreneur Michel Perridon – Zerodix refers to his prefix.
Terrible scenes
Most catering establishments decided to remain closed on New Year’s Day, out of respect for the victims and to cope with the terrible tragedy. Many employees of the cafes around Le Constellation witnessed the disaster and saw terrible scenes – people screaming, people burning, people dying. Many of them no older than 20 years old. The doors will be open again on Saturday.
The horrors can still be read on the faces of many. Like the waiter at Café 1900, a young man in his twenties with a dark flaxen beard. He silently brings cappuccino around and also a piece of cake at some tables. Yes, he was there on New Year’s Eve. But no, he says softly, “if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It was too bad.” A little later a friend of his comes by and puts his arms around him – they both start to sob.
The horrors can still be read on the faces of many
According to an eyewitness with whom the BBC spoke on New Year’s DayCafé 1900, directly opposite the disaster site, sent its own customers away shortly after the fire broke out to make room for first aid for victims who were sometimes carried from Le Constellation still half burning.
Just before the entrance to the village, some diversions are indicated with orange signs, but the access roads to the center are no longer closed off. On January 1, it was declared an emergency area where only emergency services could enter and exit. Only the square in front and a small part of the streets around the crash site are still closed to traffic on Saturday. Pedestrians can now walk past it again on the sidewalk.
The entrance to bar Le Constellation in Crans-Montana is surrounded by high fences with white tarpaulin, Sunday.
Photo JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT / EPA
They stand still, hold their breath, hug each other, cry, remain silent and take pictures. Over a length of hundreds of meters, the building is cordoned off with red-white tape and high fences covered with white tarpaulin. Police and judicial officials come and go to investigate the cause of the apocalyptic fire.
In all likelihood, the Public Prosecutor of the canton of Valais confirmed, it was caused by festive spray fire attached to champagne bottles held too close to the sound-absorbing foam rubber plates on the ceiling. The Public Prosecution Service holds the owners of Le Constellation – a French couple living in nearby Lens – responsible for the disaster. The police have started a criminal investigation. The operators are suspected of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and causing a fire by negligence.
Also read
Suddenly the ceiling caught fire – what do we know about the disastrous café fire in Switzerland?
For the time being, only part of all victims – the forty dead and 119 injured – has been identified. The provisional list mainly includes Swiss (71 injured, 8 dead), followed by French (14) and Italians (11) and some from other countries such as Belgium, Portugal and Serbia. As far as we know, there were no Dutch people.
26-year-old Frans from Haarlem, who has been coming to Crans-Montana with his family for years, has an explanation for this. Most Dutch people choose Zerodix for après-ski or night-time parties such as New Year’s Eve. “I think only locals, French and Italians come to Le Constellation.”
He was also at Zerodix with his sister on New Year’s Eve – they could have already bought tickets online in September. Around half past three it became clear to them that something serious had happened elsewhere in the village. An explosion in another café, somewhere in the center. Ambulances drove back and forth, helicopters buzzed through the air. The first rumors were that it was an attack or a major gas leak, which could also affect other places. All visitors to Zerodix were ordered to leave. For their own safety, they heard from the staff. Frans managed to reach his father, who took him and his sister to safety around half past three.
Instructions in case of fire situation
Ruud Hendriksen can explain why not many people in Crans-Montana want to talk about it publicly so soon after the deadly devastation. The Dutchman has been the owner of restaurant La Rôtisserie, about a five-minute walk from the disaster site, for decades and fears that many people will only speculate wildly until all the facts are known. “I hear many different stories here at my tables.”
Like other catering bosses in the village, he received an email from both the local and national trade association with the express instruction not to speak to the media. “Be factual and restrained,” was the appeal, “and do not comment substantively on an accident that is still the subject of investigation.” The email to all affiliated hotel and restaurant owners in Crans-Montana was accompanied by three instructions on how to act in the event of fire and other emergency situations.
A police car stands at the entrance of bar Le Constellation in Crans-Montana, Switzerland on Sunday.
Photo MAXIME SCHMID/ AFP
Who wants to tell something about Wednesday night’s event is 53-year-old Nicolas Masserey. The director of the École Suisse de Ski Crans-Montana speaks softly and struggles to keep his eyes dry. As boss of the largest ski school in this area – four hundred teachers, at peak times up to two thousand students – he was faced with what he calls “the toughest decision in my life” on New Year’s Day.
That morning, around 7 a.m., he opened his ski school headquarters as usual, near the lift in Montana. Yes, he had heard that there had been a fire in a popular bar in the center of Crans, with possible fatalities. Two, three?, were the first rumors. “No one yet knew the immense scale of the disaster.” So Masserey decided to just open his ski school that day.
Colleagues from my ski school are still missing
But what only became clear during the morning: there were possibly dozens of dead, and many more seriously injured. In addition, Masserey knew that Le Constellation is also a common entertainment spot for many of his employees. Some of them did not show up that morning. Not unusual for young ski instructors who often go out until late at night – especially on New Year’s Eve.
The director now knows more. “Colleagues from my ski school are still missing,” he sobs. He fears the worst but cannot and does not want to say anything more about it. “As soon as it is clear that they are among the victims, their families will first have to be informed.”
‘No party’
Masserey still saw no reason to close its ski school. He was thinking especially of the small children who often enjoy their first ski lessons and traditionally end the week with a medal. They received that medal on Friday and Saturday, the director says with a lump in his throat, but “No party.”
The ski school was not advised or instructed by the authorities to close their doors. A remarkable instruction, says Masserey finally. Whether he wants to be extra careful with his students and prevent falls for God’s sake. “Well, I immediately knew what they meant by this: the hospitals around here simply do not have the capacity to treat skiing accidents due to the many injured people from the disaster.”
The journalistic principles of NRC