Dozens of people die after fire at Swiss ski resort
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Swiss police say dozens of people have died in a fire at the ski resort of Crans-Montana. More than a hundred others were injured, many seriously. The fire broke out early in the morning in a bar packed with people celebrating the New Year. We hear from the scene.
Also in the programme: as the latest US visa bans and restrictions take effect in a large number of countries, mainly in Africa, we hear from the Nigerian government; plus what's behind the latest purges of China's top military officers?
(IMAGE: Furniture pieces lie on the ground as an ambulance stands at the site of an explosion and fire at the "Le Constellation" bar, where several people died and others were injured after an explosion tore through a crowded New Year’s Eve party, according to Swiss police, in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana in southwestern Switzerland, January 1, 2026, in this screen grab obtained from video / CREDIT: Valais Canton Police/Handout via REUTERS)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | Hello and welcome to News Air from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.5 | We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:15.9 | And we're going to begin today in the Swiss Alps and the ski resort of Cram, Montana, |
| 0:20.4 | where celebrations marking the new year |
| 0:22.3 | turned into what one emergency worker has called a nightmare. A fire that broke out in the lower |
| 0:28.3 | floor of a popular bar in the early hours of the morning, quickly engulfing those inside. Some managed to |
| 0:34.4 | get out, others were trapped. According to the Swiss police, dozens of people have been killed. |
| 0:40.6 | More than 100 others injured, some of them badly burned. |
| 0:43.8 | This young man, Adrian, spoke to the French Channel, BFM TV, a short time ago. |
| 0:58.2 | There were people who didn't know if their loved ones were inside, I think. |
| 1:03.2 | Seeing parents arrive in cars at full speed, worried about where their children were. |
| 1:04.7 | It was like a horror movie. |
| 1:07.9 | Very worried people and total chaos in the town. |
| 1:10.2 | We left before the firefighters arrived. |
| 1:11.8 | We left after just 10 minutes. |
| 1:17.0 | For the first 10 minutes, we saw about 20 people on the other side of the street in front of the nightclub. What's worrying is, seeing 20, and those were just the first 20, and they were already |
| 1:22.7 | badly injured. So for the others, it must have been terrible inside. We didn't see the flames at first, |
| 1:29.2 | just thick white smoke. We saw the flames after five or ten minutes and we saw people |
| 1:34.3 | rushing out, breaking windows, men in terrible pain. It's thought the blaze broke out at about |
| 1:40.6 | 1.30am. Initial report spoke of an explosion in the bar. |
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