At a New Year’s Eve party in a bar in Crans-Montana, a popular winter sports resort in the Swiss Alps, a devastating fire broke out. According to the police, about 40 people were killed and around 115 others injured – many of them severely.
The Swiss Federal President described the disaster as “one of the worst tragedies our country has ever experienced.”
The victims come from several countries and had gathered in the bar Le Constellation to celebrate the New Year when a fire broke out around 1:30 a.m. According to Swiss authorities, the fire triggered a so-called flashover – a phenomenon in which flammable materials in a room ignite almost simultaneously and the flames spread at rapid speed. At least one explosion followed shortly thereafter.
Official sources stated that it is still too early to comment on the cause or possible safety deficiencies in the bar. However, they ruled out a terrorist background.
About 30 Italian nationals were said to have been in the bar at the time of the fire, 16 of them initially listed as missing. Several doctors also pointed to the young age of many victims. The director of a hospital in Lausanne, where 22 severely burned patients are being treated, told the Swiss news portal 24 Heures that most patients were between 16 and 26 years old.
Mamdani Assumes Mayoral Office in New York
Zohran Mamdani was sworn in yesterday as Mayor of New York City in a special ceremony in an abandoned subway station – just hours before his public inauguration in front of City Hall.
The 34-year-old democratic socialist is the first Muslim and South Asian to govern America’s largest city. “Many will be watching closely. They want to know if the Left is capable of governing,” Mamdani said in his inaugural address.
What follows now will decide whether Mamdani is regarded as a pioneer of a new era – or soon forgotten as a failed idealist, writes the New York Times.
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P. Tiko