Analogy of a Catastrophe
I normally avoid commenting on news stories. Not because they do not matter, but because most commentary replaces thinking with reflex. Outrage is cheap. It creates noise, not clarity.
This case is different.
Over New Year’s, a fire broke out in a bar in the canton of Valais, quite far from where I live in Switzerland. Forty people died. As the facts emerged, it became clear that nearly half of them were minors. Some were fourteen years old. The fire started shortly after one in the morning.
For a country like Switzerland, this is deeply unsettling. We are used to assuming that layered safety regulations, inspections, and institutional responsibility make disasters of this scale nearly impossible. That assumption has now collapsed.
The first part of the answer lies in the physical space itself and the absence of meaningful oversight. The bar was located in a cellar. The owner renovated it himself, apparently without professional planning or proper inspection. Flammable soundproofing material was installed in the ceiling. The main stairway, the primary escape route, had been narrowed. Reports suggest that the emergency exit was either locked, not visible, or effectively unusable. When the fire started, the space became a trap within seconds.
This cellar bar should never have passed inspection.
But inspections either did not happen or did not matter. In Valais, unlike in most of Switzerland, responsibility is delegated to the communal level. In small communities, this creates a familiar dynamic. Everyone knows everyone. The bar brings money. Young people gather. The place feels lively. Complaints feel disruptive. Enforcement feels unfriendly.
So safety becomes negotiable.
This logic is old. It is the same logic on display in Jaws. As long as business is good, warnings are inconvenient. Nothing bad has happened yet, so surely nothing will happen tomorrow. Rules exist. Risks are visible. And still, no one intervenes.
The second part of the answer sits with the bar owners themselves. They treated the place as a lawless zone. Alcohol was served to minors. Not occasionally. Not accidentally. Openly. Fourteen-year-olds were inside. Nobody seriously believes they were there for soft drinks.
They let anyone in. They ignored age limits. They ignored responsibility. And then came the final act of recklessness. Pyrotechnic effects were used inside the bar. Not by customers, but by the owners or their staff. Fireworks ignited in a confined cellar space, beneath a ceiling lined with flammable material of unknown composition, in a building altered without understanding the consequences.
This was not an accident caused by a reckless guest. It was not unforeseeable. The people responsible for the space created the conditions and then lit the spark.
At that point, talk of second chances or past mistakes becomes irrelevant. What matters is present behavior. And the behavior here shows a complete rejection of limits. The rules were not misunderstood. They were dismissed.
The third part of the answer is the one nobody likes to face, because it reflects too clearly:
How were minors, some only fourteen years old, in a bar at one or two in the morning?
This is not a question for the police or the courts alone. It is a question for parents, or more accurately, for society. Children do not belong in cellars at night, drinking alcohol in unregulated spaces. Not in Switzerland. Not anywhere.
Blaming the bar owners is justified. They carry the heaviest responsibility. But pretending this absolves everyone else is dishonest. This was not one child sneaking out unnoticed. It was a group. A pattern. A collective absence of supervision.
There is another detail that should trouble us deeply. Many of the young people did not run when the fire started. They filmed. Phones out. Recording instead of escaping.
This reveals a generation raised on mediated danger. Disaster is something that happens on screens, in clips, in short videos. Catastrophe is content. The body no longer reacts fast enough because the mind does not believe the danger is real.
These children were not born this way. They unlearned their instincts.
What happened in Valais was not an accident. It was a chain of abdications.
The owners ignored the rules.
Oversight did not insist.
Authorities delegated responsibility until it dissolved.
Parents did not really care where their children were until it was too late.
The kids themselves did not recognize danger when it appeared.
Everyone assumed someone else was in charge.
But no one was.