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POLICE HAVE SAID that the process of recovering and identifying bodies from the burned out Grenfell Tower in London will be difficult and could take months.
Grenfell Tower went up in flames in the early hours of yesterday morning and spread quickly through almost all of the apartment block’s flats.
It was home to around 600 people – whole families still remain missing after the fire, which forced residents to flee through black smoke down the single stairwell, jump out of windows or even drop their children to safety.
Of the 17 victims found by emergency services so far, six were outside the tower, while it has not yet been deemed safe enough to recover the 11 bodies found inside.
“They are simply not recognisable because of the fire,” Fiona McCormack, from the Metropolitan Police’s identification team, said of the victims found inside Grenfell Tower.
As the fire continued to burn more than 36 hours after the blaze started, police commander Stuart Cundy said he did not expect to find any survivors.
“There is a risk we may not be able to identify everybody. The process will be very long. We’re talking weeks, we’re talking months,” he said.
Anger
Anger has been mounting in London over a devastating tower block blaze which killed at least 17 people, as police said some of the victims were left unrecognisable by the blaze.
Locals yelled questions at Mayor Sadiq Khan as he walked through the west London neighbourhood where the 24-storey Grenfell Tower went up in flames early yesterday morning.
“How many children died? What are you going to do about it?” a boy asked Khan, as the mayor tried to stop tensions rising further.
“You can see the anger for the community, justifiably so,” he said.
“Many people have been saying for some time now, their concerns about the housing we’re talking about now, but also other tower blocks around London.”
Cause of fire unknown
Questions are growing about how the flames spread so quickly, engulfing the tower’s 120 apartments in what fire chiefs said was an unprecedented blaze.
The focus of criticism centres on the cladding fitted to external walls on the 1970s concrete block as part of a €9.9 million refit completed last year.
According to the BBC, the cladding had a plastic core and was similar to that used by high-rise buildings in France, the United Arab Emirates and Australia, which had also suffered fires that spread.
Rydon, the firm responsible for the refit, said the project “met all required building regulations”.
Harley Facades, which fitted the panels, told the BBC: “At this time, we are not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding to the tower.”
London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said they still did not the cause of the fire, where it started or why it spread in such a way.
‘Shaken to the core’
Earlier today, Prime Minister Theresa May ordered a public inquiry, an official review of action by public institutions.
Khan urged the government to publish an interim report as soon as this summer, saying “we cannot afford to wait years for those answers”.
In addition to debate over the cladding, questions have also been raised over why there was no sprinkler system in the Grenfell Tower which could have helped stop the fire spreading, or any central smoke alarm system that would have woken sleeping residents.
Official fire service advice for residents to stay in their homes and use towels to block out smoke, while awaiting help, has also come under scrutiny.
MPs have also called for quick progress with an official inquiry, with the Grenfell Tower residents’ local lawmaker Emma Dent Coad saying their “lives have been destroyed”.
“They’ve lost their loved ones and their communities have been shaken to the core. They need answers,” she said during a meeting at Westminster.
Fellow London MP Harriet Harman urged politicians to pursue the inquiry without delay, warning Fire Minister Nick Hurd if they didn’t act “you and all of us are culpable”.
Emergency fund
Grenfell Tower is part of a social housing estate in north Kensington, just streets away from some of the most expensive homes in the world in Notting Hill.
Residents have said their safety concerns were ignored, arguing their fears would have been addressed before the tragedy had they lived in a more upmarket area of London.
“If this happened somewhere near Knightsbridge this would have been resolved. It wouldn’t have been an issue,” said Nana Akuffo, 46, a chef volunteering at a local community centre.
David Collins, former chairman of the Grenfell Tower Residents’ Association, said the building’s management had failed to listen to residents’ calls for improvements on fire safety.
“This is a multi-ethnic, multicultural, diverse community that just didn’t get served by the people representing them,” Collins told AFP.
The government today set up an emergency fund to allow the local authorities to deal with the disaster.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds have already been raised online for the victims, while local community centres were inundated by donations of clothes and food.
With reporting from Gráinne Ní Aodha
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Heard a story today from a relative of some of the victims who remained in contact till the end recounting how two families huddled together in one flat with no possible hope of being saved. The Muslim mother remained composed as her children screamed ‘Daddy will come and save us mummy’. She gathered them around her and prayed until they departed this life.
RIP.
@Tommy Browne: do you have a link to this story?
@Shannon Mcg:
It was a radio interview. Let me think about it.
@Shannon Mcg:
There’s one link.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/forgive-me-goodbye-harrowing-final-10621929
““This is a multi-ethnic, multicultural, diverse community that just didn’t get served by the people representing them,”
… are they really trying to make a fire about racism?
@Shannon Mcg: the daily mail are running a name and shame story about the guy who’s washing machine they reckon started the fire as if it was his fault. Disgusting vile rag!
@Brian Fal: there was more to it than his washing machine.
@Shannon Mcg: no.
@Tony Daly:
Definitely raises all sorts of questions
@Shannon Mcg: fake news. It was a fridge.
As the Dutch saying goes: After the calf has drowned, the well is filled.
- “we are not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding to the tower”
If all you can do is speak via your lawyers, then please just say nothing at all. Slap in the face of the victims.
The cladding was a known and established fire risk. It was criminal recklessness to allow inherently dangerous plastic composite cladding to be installed. This was not the extent of the recklessness.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this tragedy doesn’t ignite major civil unrest in London this summer
@John Mullan: people tend to be accepting of such disasters regardless of the human responsibility.
@Tony Daly: I hope you are right
@John Mullan: I may well be wrong on this occasion. What happened here was criminal recklessness. It raises a question of corporate manslaughter.
People are entitled to feel provoked and angry.
The last minutes of the lives of the deceased would have been utterly horrendous.
The lives of more than 17 people were sacrificed on the altar of penny pinching.
The plating composite cladding was a known fire risk.
That building can’t be safe, after a fire like that and are there more of these buildings in the Country?
@Stephen murphy: in a London yes but the position in Ireland is unknown.
@Tony Daly: I could name at least one very large prominent building in Dublin covered in similar cladding
@Brian Fal: yes, I suspect that there are such buildings.
In some cases, the cladding is plastic based and cheap. It is highly flammable.
In other cases, the composite is mineral based and is not easily flammable. It is a function of cost.
It is about taking risks with human life for the sake of budgetary considerations.
@Tony Daly: true but questions have to be asked how does PIR plastic foam insulation and plastic foam cored panels achieve decent fire ratings when in the real world they burn like tinder, something stinks
The fire service is hoping that the final death toll will be less than 100.
@Tony Daly: Ya but it seem there are over 400 ppl missing ….
The chickens are coming home to roost for years of willful neglect of properties in London. Even the houses of Parliament is at risk of a serious fire, as reported in the telegraph April 2017, Officials warn of the risk of a devastating Windsor Castle type fire.
People really do not have a clue to the dangers that they have been put in
Retrofitting sprinkler systems would help.
Removing dangerous calling would help.
Calling can intensify the speed and intensity of spread as established 8 years ago.
@Tony Daly: “calling”?
Corporate manslaughter will help accountability.
The singer Lily Allen (who is from the area) was on Channel 4 News last night – she said that the death toll will considerably surpass 100 and will be in the region of 150.
@John Ryan: err… Really? And a singer would know this, how?
@Jane Alford: err Jane Alford. .. she would know because she has many friends and contacts in the area. Many scores of people are missing and no prospect of anybody else being found alive now. The Tory council know the truth about the scale of fatalities but are ashamed to say. The Police also know as their commander said he hopes that the death toll will not reach 3 figures. That’s a hope – sadly not a realistic expectation.
Indifference to the poor led to this, if not ethnic or religious bias. RIP.
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