MILAN: A fire at a retirement home in the early hours of Friday in Milan killed six people, firefighters said, with some 80 other residents hospitalised suffering from smoke inhalation.
The three-storey building was reportedly housing 167 people when the fire started in the early morning hours. “It was a hellish scene,” local resident Lucia, who can see the home from her house, told reporters.
“We saw old people protecting their faces with wet rags,” and windows had been cracking with the heat, she said. The cause of the blaze was not yet known, the fire brigade said. Over 10 ambulances, various fire trucks and a silver mortuary van attended the scene in the south of the Italian city.
“Six people killed, numerous (others) suffering from smoke inhalation hospitalised. Dozens of people saved by firefighters who immediately evacuated the building,” the fire brigade said on Twitter.