'My face was half-burned': Survivor recalls Swiss fire

When Noa Bersier arrived with several friends at Le Constellation shortly after midnight Thursday, he found the bar crowded, though not packed, with young people celebrating the new year.

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In the basement, people were dancing to pop music. Mr Bersier, a marketing coordinator for a Swiss hockey team, played billiards with friends. Servers were hurrying to and fro, he said, some carrying Champagne bottles topped with sparkling candles.

Then celebration turned to disaster: Mr Bersier, 20, noticed the ceiling was on fire. He did not see what caused it, he said, but within minutes the flames had spread across the room.

He grabbed his jacket, he said, and rushed for the only exit he knew the stairs ascending to the ground floor. So did many others, leading to a scrum of bodies on the stairs, all of them trapped below ground.

Suddenly, he felt a heat wave pulse through him, even though, he said, he did not see any flames near him.