Fire has ripped through a 20-storey residential building in Milan, leaving rescue workers scrambling to make sure no one had been caught in the flames and thick smoke, The Guardian reports.
The blaze on Sunday started on the upper floors of the tower on the southern outskirts of the capital of the Lombardy region.
“The flames then spread to the lower levels,” causing thick smoke, the fire services said on Twitter.
The building houses about 70 families, who were being contacted in an effort to make sure no one was missing.
“The firemen are going from apartment to apartment, knocking down doors to make sure no one remains inside,” Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. “But we are optimistic because people had time to get out,” he added.
According to the authorities, about 20 residents suffered slight smoke inhalation. Dozens of ambulances and fire engines were at the scene.
All the residents who were in their apartments when the fire broke out – about 3o people – were all safely evacuated. They said the flames spread through the cladding on the façade, which was supposed to have been fire resistant, Corriere della Sera reported.
Prosecutors in Milan have launched an investigation to determine the cause of the fire. According to Carlo Sibia, an Interior Ministry official in Rome, “the rapid spread of the flames was due to the thermal covering of the building”.
Authorities now fear the building is at risk of collapse, due to the high temperatures that could have melted the steel columns.
According to some experts, the facade of the building was built with “inappropriate materials”.
The 60-meter tall building was designed to look like the keel of a ship. It included an aluminum sail on its roof, which burned after the blaze, falling in pieces to the street.