Swiss ski resort fire survivors and witnesses describe scenes as ‘horror movie’

Nathan Huguenin, 19, said he couldn’t sleep after the jump a fire that tore through a densely populated area of ​​Switzerland bar during New Year’s party, killing a lot of peoplemany are young and in their early 20s.

“I feel like it’s really a nightmare, that I’m going to wake up,” Huguenin told reporters on Thursday. “I closed my eyes, and everything kept coming back to me, because I saw people being revived. I saw people completely burned. I saw people die. In fact, it was complicated and very difficult to stomach.”

The bar Le Constellation in the Swiss town of Crans-Montana was popular with the younger crowd. The legal drinking age for wine and beer in the Valais region where it is found is 16, so many young people came to the bar to celebrate the new year.

The owner of a nearby shop told British broadcaster Sky News that Le Constellation is known for attracting young people.

Paris tourist Axel Clavier, 16, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was in a bar when the fire broke out, and he felt like he was on fire.

Describing the situation as “total chaos,” Clavier said he was able to escape by forcing open a window with a table. He said one of his friends was killed, two or three are still missing, and he is “still in shock.”

A witness named Alexis, 18, who saw the fire outside Le Constellation, told the media that many people inside tried to break the windows, according to the British newspaper Daily Mail.

“There was a real flame coming. It was coming out and … basically, people were running from these flames,” he said. “You could see the shadows. People were trying to break the glass with chairs in the bar.”

Another witness, who chose not to be named, told CBS News affiliate BBC News that he thought his brother was in the bar when the fire broke out.

“I came and tried to break the window to help people out, then I went in,” he told the BBC. Inside, he said, “he saw people burning … I found people burning from head to toe, with their clothes gone.”

He said that if his brother had not been injured, he could have easily entered the bar.

“I’ve been in this pub every day this week,” he told the BBC. “The day I didn’t go, there was a fire.”

Oscar, 19, also saw the fire and told Sky News The Constellation “is a very popular bar with young people, so I think it’s a very concentrated place where you get a lot of young people. That’s why we wanted to go there.”

He said he and his friends had tried to enter the bar on New Year’s but were told it was full.

“But we knew, like other ways in,” said Oscar.

He said he tried to use the code to get a side door, and get someone who was already at the bar to open another entrance for him and his friends, but to no avail.

“Three minutes later, we’re just in front, like three meters away – it exploded. It’s crazy,” said Oscar. “A lot of people tried to get out and people were banging on the windows, because it’s like a winter garden … It’s like an outdoor place but there’s still windows. And everybody was banging on the windows and stuff. Screaming. It was like a horror movie. But they couldn’t get out. I think the windows were too crowded. And then people, like, fell over each other and got out, burning completely.”

“Even people ask me: Did I burn my face?” Oscar remembered. “Because I think the adrenaline made them feel nothing. Because they were completely, I don’t know, completely burned and they didn’t feel anything.”

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, said the EU will help provide medical aid. A Swiss official said on Friday that 50 injured people had been transferred to burn centers outside Switzerland.