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LONDON (AP) — A fire that swept through a six-story student apartment building in northern England has raised concerns that authorities failed to learn the lessons of the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster in which 72 people died.
Eyewitness reports suggest the fire, which broke out Friday evening in the town of Bolton, moved swiftly up the building’s exterior cladding, raising uncomfortable parallels to the Grenfell fire. Two people were injured in the blaze.
Ace Love, 35, told the Press Association that the Bolton fire “kept getting more intense, climbing up and to the right because the wind was blowing so hard.’’
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said that “if reports are correct and flammable cladding contributed to the fire, it shows the government's shameful inaction since Grenfell."
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