‘The fire is here, I’m dying,’ says inferno victim
LONDON — A young artist posted a final message on Facebook: “Please pray for me and my mum” as the smoke engulfed their apartment.
Khadija Saye and her mother Mary Mendy were among those feared to have died in the Grenfell Tower blaze in Kensington, west London. Police confirmed 12 people were dead but said that figure would rise significantly.
Hundreds of the roughly 500 residents in the block were unaccounted for Wednesday night. Some estimated that the death toll could rise above 100.
The fire, thought to have been sparked by a faulty refrigerator, started just after 1 a.m. Wednesday and quickly spread up the building.
Some residents knotted sheets together to make ropes in attempts to escape. Some tried to manufacture makeshift parachutes from garbage bags and bedding and leap out of windows.
Many of those that survived only did so by ignoring official advice to stay in their rooms and close their front doors until the fire was over.
More than 200 firefighters worked through the night and were still finding pockets of fire inside later in the day.
“In my 29 years of being a firefighter, I have never, ever seen anything of this scale,” Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said.
The 24-storey tower was a “disaster waiting to happen” experts said. Fears were raised that green energy concerns were prioritized ahead of safety as it emerged that cladding used to make the building more sustainable could have accelerated the fire.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said many questions must be answered about safety for the scores of other apartment blocks around the British capital.
The London Fire Brigade said it received the first reports of the blaze at 12:54 a.m. and the first engines arrived within six minutes.
Saye, the 24-year-old artist, was trapped in her 20th floor home with her mother.
A 12-year-old girl was also missing. Jessica Urbano was last seen trying to escape from the 20th floor. Her family has checked all the hospitals but to no avail. Her sister Melanie said: “They don’t know anything. They don’t have lists.” Nura Jamal and her two sons, aged six and 11, are still missing. Her daughter is understood to have been treated in hospital. Jamal called her friend at around 2 a.m. and said: “Forgive me, the fire is here, I’m dying.”
The Grenfell Action Group has been warning about the risk of fire at the tower since 2013. In a Nov. 20 blog, the group predicted that only “a catastrophic event” leading to “serious loss of life” would bring the outside scrutiny needed to make conditions safe for residents.
The Kensington and Chelsea Council said its immediate focus was helping victims and their families. It said the cause of the blaze would be “fully investigated.”