Four dead and eight injured after fire destroys Swiss residential building

Swiss police confirmed on Sunday, 23 August, that four people died after a fire tore through a restaurant and residential building in Thusis, in the eastern canton of Graubünden, shortly after midnight on Friday, 21 August. Eight people were injured, including two seriously, while nobody remains missing, according to the Graubünden cantonal police. Updated: 27 August 2026, 10:00 CEST.

The authorities initially listed five people as missing. Police spokesperson Pascal Vetsch later told Swiss public broadcaster SRF that one of them had also been recorded among the seriously injured, reducing the number actually unaccounted for to four. Search teams subsequently found all four victims inside the damaged building. Formal identification had not been completed when the police issued their latest public statement.

Fourteen occupants escaped from the burning property, the cantonal government said. Of the eight people injured, two sustained serious injuries, two were moderately hurt and four suffered minor injuries. Emergency workers treated casualties at the scene before transfers to hospitals in Thusis, Chur, Ilanz and Zurich, according to the initial police account carried by Euronews and French-language Belgian outlets DH and 7sur7.

The Graubünden cantonal police said preliminary evidence placed the start of the fire on the building’s second floor. The property contained a restaurant at ground level and small residential studios above it. A collapsed stairwell and the unstable structure complicated access, forcing crews to dismantle the roof layer by layer with lifting equipment before investigators could search the interior safely.

Around 100 firefighters took part in the initial response, according to the police account reported by Euronews. The municipality arranged accommodation and meals for residents who could not return to the property, while a specialist care team supported survivors and relatives.

The fire’s cause remains unknown. The Graubünden public prosecutor’s office and cantonal police are investigating both its origin and the circumstances surrounding the deaths. Authorities have not released the victims’ identities or nationalities, and no connection to Belgium has been announced. The incident therefore has no confirmed direct effect in Belgium, although Belgian travellers or residents with contacts in the area should rely on official Swiss updates until identification work is complete.

The next substantive developments will come from the forensic identification process and the fire investigation. Investigators must establish how the blaze began, how it spread through the mixed-use building and whether its internal layout affected evacuation. No timetable for those findings has been published.