Overnight fire in Thusis leaves five missing and eight injured in Swiss Alps

Overnight blaze in Thusis

A fire broke out shortly after midnight in the early hours of Friday, 21 August 2026, in the Alpine town of Thusis, located in the eastern Swiss canton of Graubünden. The building housed the Beverin restaurant on the ground floor with rental rooms and studio apartments on the upper levels. Emergency services reported that 27 people were present inside the property at the moment the fire started. Initial reporting from the Swiss news agency Keystone-ATS indicated that flames first appeared on the second floor before engulfing the remainder of the structure. The blaze resulted in the complete destruction of the building, causing the internal staircase to collapse and destroying the roof.

Search operations and casualties

Fourteen occupants managed to escape the burning structure, while five individuals remain missing. Eight people sustained injuries, including two who were severely hurt, two who suffered moderate injuries, and four who received minor injuries. Emergency medical personnel and rescue teams from Mittelbünden, Chur, Schiers, and Surselva, assisted by a Rega helicopter crew, provided initial treatment on site. The injured were transferred to regional hospitals in Chur, Thusis, and Ilanz, with the most critical patients taken to a hospital in Zurich. Nearly 100 firefighters deployed to the scene and continued their containment work through Friday morning. Structural instability created severe collapse hazards, preventing search crews from entering freely and requiring firefighters to dismantle the roof to access upper floors.

Residents and missing occupants

The residential units in the building were primarily occupied by regional employees and seasonal workers, mostly originating from Portugal and Romania. Witnesses stated that some residents avoided the incident because they were away on vacation in Portugal. Among the five unaccounted-for individuals is a young Portuguese woman employed as a cleaner at the Beverin restaurant. Another missing resident is a 57-year-old North Macedonian national who telephoned his 35-year-old nephew, Kire, during the blaze to alert him that the apartment was burning. Kire rushed to the premises and entered the ground level, but thick smoke and heat blocked him on the first floor.

It is a difficult situation for us.

Official response and investigation

The owners of the Beverin restaurant escaped without physical injury. Portugal's State Secretariat for Portuguese Communities confirmed that two Portuguese nationals were among the injured, one in serious condition and another with minor injuries. Portugal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it was tracking developments while awaiting official formal identification of all affected victims. The municipality of Thusis arranged emergency food and housing for displaced tenants, while the four-member Care Team Grischun mobilized psychological support for victims, families, and emergency crews. The Graubünden Cantonal Police and the local Public Prosecutor's Office initiated an investigation to determine the origin of the fire. In a separate incident on Thursday evening at approximately 22:30, a kitchen fire in Schaffhausen injured 11 people, resulting in nine hospitalizations, including a police officer.