Firefighters said everyone managed to escape the 18 storey building in the south of Milan, which was gutted by the blaze that broke out on Sunday afternoon.
Witnesses have said the fire, which started on the 15th floor, quickly surged through the outside cladding of the building. Video of the blaze showed panels melting off the building in liquefied clumps.
"The tower was built just over 10 years ago and it is unacceptable that such a modern building should have proved totally vulnerable," mayor Beppe Sala wrote on Facebook. "What was clear from the start was that the building's outer shell went up in flames far too quickly, in a manner reminiscent of the Grenfell Tower fire in London a few years ago."
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/milan-mayor-says-cladding-melted-tower-block-blaze-londons-grenfell-2021-08-30/Angelo Lucchini, a professor of technical architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan, told Corriere della Sera:
?The facade of the building was built with combustible materials. Unfortunately there is no law that prohibits it.?Prosecutors in Milan have launched an investigation to determine the cause of the fire. According to Carlo Sibilia, an interior ministry official in Rome, ?the rapid spread of the flames was due to the thermal covering of the building?.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/30/milan-mayor-likens-tower-block-fire-to-grenfell-disaster
