Milan – «An exterminated family…Three people died like this, without having done anything». They shiver, grit their teeth and rub their wet eyes without being able to move. The police sanitary cordon forces residents to remain, shocked and unarmed, at the edge of the road, in via Jacopo Palma, a few tens of meters from the inferno of flames and smoke unleashed shortly before by the electrician’s workshop in via Frà Galgario 8 in the Gambara area, western outskirts of Milan. A black and violent fire that a few minutes after 7pm engulfed the facade of the 5-storey building that stands right above the mechanic’s shop. And where the smoke, acrid and very dense, reached the Tallardo family’s apartment on the third floor, killing the 66-year-old head of the family Silvano, his three-year-younger wife, Carolina De Luca and his 34-year-old son Antonio. The firefighters found them when the fire had just been put out. They were already dead, the smoke inhaled was fatal to the entire family who were unable to save themselves. In hospital at the Polyclinic, under yellow code, Stefano, the 39-year-old owner of the workshop and two elderly women aged 68 and 69 under green code at the San Giuseppe hospital, as well as a 56-year-old who ended up at San Carlo.
The fire investigation unit (NIA) of the fire brigade on site yesterday evening together with the staff of eight fire brigade teams, responsible for shedding light on the causes of the fire, was instructed to draw up a report, which will then be signed by the provincial commander Nicola Micele, to be handed over to the Milan Prosecutor’s Office which has opened a case for manslaughter, disaster and negligent fire. Stefano, the owner of the workshop – according to what we learned last night – will be entered in the register of suspects to guarantee him. It seems that inside the workshop, inherited a few years ago from his uncle, a very well-known craftsman in the area, last night the 39-year-old was busy connecting the wires of a car. The spark caused would have somehow tapped into the car’s tank; hence, with the flammable liquid, the fire was started which was then fueled by burning the numerous tires present in the workshop and which caused the highly toxic smoke. A deadly cloud that people even felt last night in Corso Vercelli – more than two kilometers from the accident site – where people complained of burning sensations in their throats. The dynamics of the incident, however, are still being reconstructed.
«I live here in via Palma and while I was returning home from work I saw people fleeing from the Japanese restaurant in via Frà Galgario and from the Becco Fino pizzeria, then I noticed the column of smoke, the flames coming out of the workshop into the street and
they lit up the street like day – says civil lawyer Riccardo Genti -. The smoke was thick, too thick for anyone to be saved. Whoever was able to save himself in the building was because he wasn’t at home at the time.”
