Deadly London fire: How and why?
World

Deadly London fire: How and why?

PUBLISHED : 14 Jun 2017 at 23:58

UPDATED : 15 Jun 2017 at 11:57

WRITER: Agencies

London police confirm 12 bodies have been recovered from the still-smoking towering inferno, with 20 other critical.
London police confirm 12 bodies have been recovered from the still-smoking towering inferno, with 20 other critical.

LONDON - Residents and community leaders demanded to know Wednesday how a ferocious fire engulfed a 24-story apartment tower in London on Wednesday with such speed that it killed at least 12 people.

The anger was particularly strong since activists had warned just seven months ago that fire safety procedures were so lax that only a catastrophic blaze would bring the scrutiny needed to make the building safe.

Read why residents are angry.

Desperately trying to avoid the flames, residents threw one baby and other small children from high windows to people down on the sidewalk, witnesses said.

"Sadly I can confirm there are now 12 people that have died that we know of. This is going to be a long and complex recovery operation and I do anticipate that the number of fatalities will sadly increase beyond those 12," London Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy said.

The inferno lit up the night sky and spew#mce_temp_url#ed black smoke from the windows of the Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, where more than 200 firefighters battled the blaze.

The smoke stretched for kilometres across the sky after dawn, revealing the blackened, flame-licked wreckage of the building, which was still burning over 12 hours later.

"A smouldering ruin" tweeted Sky News, with video.

People trapped by the advancing flames and thick smoke banged on windows and screamed for help, witnesses and survivors said. One resident said the fire alarm did not go off - bolstering the arguments of a community group, which only months ago had warned of a potential catastrophe at the subsidized housing block.

"The flames - I have never seen anything like it, it just reminded me of 9/11," said Muna Ali, 45. "The fire started on the upper floors ... oh my goodness, it spread so quickly. It had completely spread within half an hour."

"This is an unprecedented incident," Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton told reporters. "In my 29 years of being a firefighter, I have never, ever seen anything of this scale."

She said she feared more victims would be found still inside the tower, where up to 600 people lived in 120 apartments. The London Fire Brigade said it rescued 65 people.

By 5pm, (11pm Thailand time Wednesday) it was still not clear how many people were able to escape the fire and how many others were still missing. Firefighters carried out systematic searches throughout the charred wreckage and officials urged tower residents to call a hotline to help them get a handle on the number of missing.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the blaze, but angry residents said they had warned local authorities about fire issues at Grenfell Tower.

The housing block, built in 1974, was recently upgraded at a cost of £8.6 million (฿373 million baht; $11 million), with work finishing in May 2016, according to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Joe Walsh, 58, said he saw someone throw two children out of a window from the fifth or sixth floor. Tiago Etienne, 17, said he spotted about three children between the ages of four and eight being dropped from an apartment around the 15th floor.

Samira Lamrani, a witness, said one woman dropped a baby from a window on the ninth or 10th floor to people on the sidewalk.

"People were starting to appear at the windows, frantically banging and screaming" and one woman indicated she was going to drop the baby, Lamrani told Britain's Press Association news agency. "A gentleman ran forward and managed to grab the baby."

Huffington Post UK had details on a mother who threw her baby to safety.

The London Fire Brigade received the first reports of the fire at 12.54am on Wednesday (6.54am Thailand time) and the first engines arrived within six minutes, Cotton said.

Witnesses described a white, polystyrene-type material falling like snow from the building as it burned. Some feared the charred tower block might collapse, but a structural engineer said the building was not in danger, according to the London Fire Brigade, which added "it is safe for our crews to be in there."

Ruks Mamudu, 69, escaped from her first floor apartment wearing only her purple pyjamas and bathrobe. She and her grandson sat outside the building, helplessly watching those trapped on higher floors.

"I sat there watching my house burn down and watching people cry for help who couldn't come down," she said.

People at the scene spoke of being unable to reach friends or family inside the building or seeing people using flashlights and mobile phones to try to signal for help from the building's higher floors.

Nassima Boutrig, who lives opposite the building, said she was awakened by sirens and smoke so thick that it filled her home as well.

"We saw the people screaming," she said. "A lot of people said `Help! Help! Help!' The fire brigade could only help downstairs. It was fire up, up, up. They couldn't stop the fire."

Do you like the content of this article?
COMMENT (10)

RECOMMENDED

TRENDING