Survivors and witnesses of Swiss ski resort fires recount scenes ‘like in a horror film’

Nathan Huguenin, 19, said he couldn’t sleep after escaping from the fire that ravaged a crowded Swiss ski resort bar at a New Year’s party, killing dozens of peoplemany are teenagers and early 20s.

“I feel like it’s really a nightmare, that I’m going to wake up,” Huguenin told reporters Thursday. “I closed my eyes and everything kept coming back to me, because I saw people resuscitating. I saw people completely burned. I saw people die. Honestly, it was quite complicated and quite difficult to bear.”

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

The owner of a nearby store told British channel Sky News that Le Constellation was known for welcoming young people.

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

Calling the situation “total chaos,” Clavier said he managed to escape by forcing a window open with a table. He said one of his friends had been killed, two or three were still missing and he was “still in shock.”

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

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

Another witness, who chose not to release his name, told CBS News’ sister network, 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, and then I went in,” he said. told BBC. Inside, he said he “saw people burning…I found people burning from head to toe, no more clothes.”

He said his brother was not injured and could easily have been in the bar himself.

“I’ve been to this bar every day this week,” he told the BBC. “The day I didn’t go, it burned.”

Oscar, 19, also witnessed the fire and told Sky News The Constellation was “a bar very frequented by teenagers, so I think it’s a very concentrated place where you find a lot of teenagers. That’s why we wanted to go there.”

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

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

He said he tried using a code to access a side door and asking someone already in the bar to open another entrance for him and his friends, but nothing worked.

“Three minutes later, we’re right in front, about three meters away, it exploded. It’s crazy,” Oscar said. “A lot of people were trying to escape and people were banging on the windows, because it’s like a conservatory… It’s like a semi-outdoor place but still with windows. And everyone 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 thick. Then people fell on them on the way out, completely burned.”

“Even people ask me: am I burned on the face, am I burned?” Oscar called back. “Because I think the adrenaline made them not feel anything. Because they were completely, I don’t know, completely burned out and they didn’t feel anything.”

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said The EU would help provide medical assistance to victims of the fire through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.