In the early hours of the New Year, hundreds of revelers at Le Constellation bar were partying at an upscale Swiss resort.
Music thumped, champagne flowed, and people celebrated in Crans Montana, a high-end bar , high in the mountains. Waitresses paraded champagne bottles, a lighted sparkler placed in each bottle, adding to the festivities and fun.
In an instant, less than two hours into the New Year, a flame from a sparkler touched and torched the foam lined ceiling. There was a deafening explosion, a massive fire, a stampede and dozens of deaths and more than 100 injuries. It happened in a matter of minutes that seemed like an eternity. The number of casualties is currently unknown and unlikely to be known for a while.
Confusion, shock, anger and questions followed. For me, watching the catastrophe from Romania, it was a deju vu of the Colectiv nightclub fire of Friday, October 30, 2015, where a fire killed 65 and injured many more.
I spent the whole weekend in 2015 covering the catastrophe from home (WiFi was functional by then), barely taking my eyes off the television screen or leaving my living room in case I missed a precious update. I remember every detail of the tragedy, both technical and human as if it was yesterday. So when I awoke to the Crans Montana nightmare on January 1, it was Colectiv all over again. Copy paste.
In Romania, they blamed corruption, lax enforcement of rules, overcrowding, and poor hospitals on the number of deaths. All these things may have been true and may have contributed to the worst man-made tragedy in recent history. The slogan that emerged from the fire that stands more than ten years on is: “Corruption kills.”
Public anger in the days after the tragedy led to protests and the collapse of Prime Minister Victor Ponta’s government. New laws were employed such as a wide public smoking ban. And many other things. The shock and social fallout continued for months. Some people lost their faith and blamed the Orthodox Church for not having empathy with rockers (some ill-advised individuals even called the musicians ‘Satanists.’)
Switzerland is about as different from Romania as you can get on many levels.
It scores very well on Transparency International’s corruption index, and is one of the least corrupt countries in the world (it ranks the 5th least corrupt country compared to Romania’s 46th position out of 180 countries that are measured on an annual basis).
Switzerland, a mountainous country of just over 9 million has excellent healthcare while its citizens, at least to the outside eye, are viewed as responsible law-abiding people. Perhaps the only blemish is its banking system that was considered opaque and expert at hiding the very wealthy’s money, but even that has changed in recent years. They aren’t in EU but their rules are sometimes stricter than the ones from Brussels.
So what went wrong?
In an age of social media which dominates hours of our waking lives, common sense has flown out of the window. I did not study science to any significant level at school but I know if you place a flame, from a candle or firework, near a flammable surface such as plastic, foam or even wood, a natural element, a fire can erupt and if it does, it can spread rapidly and fiercely in the space of seconds devastating everything in its sight.
If you have hundreds of people in an enclosed place like a club, particularly when they are relaxed, then instinct, survival instinct and panic surely follows. People rush to get out. That in itself causes a stampede which can lead to extra injuries and even deaths. The people that die I have to report aren’t burned to death; they often inhale noxious and white-hot gases. An excruciating death that we can only hope is quick.
A small point I would not like to dwell on at this tragic time is the fact that many businesses make a decent percentage of their year’s takings during the holiday season. There is competition with other establishments to make your event the best and the shiniest one possible.
Only as Colectiv and Crans Montana have shown us, these factors, human and man-made, come at the greatest cost of all: human life.
It is time for a ban on fireworks and pyrotechnics in indoor places for once and for all, even if the fun is dialed down a notch. The upside is that human lives will be saved.
Giorgia Meloni shakes hands with Zelensky to support Ukraine throughout 2026
