Appalling scenes from the fatal New Year’s Eve bar fire in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, were captured on camera phones by people there for the party. In video shared on social media, one sees dancers parading behind a man who progresses through the bar with a sparkler held aloft close to the low basement ceiling. Then you see a small area of that ceiling on fire; flames ripple out like shallow wavelets running up the sands of a beach.

Suddenly, the scene changes dramatically for the worse. The whole bar is filled with smoke illuminated by a red glow; then people are rushing for a narrow stairway to the only exit; immediately afterward, the whole building seems to be a mass of flame, and you hear screams from people panicked and perhaps trapped.