Fire safety failings fuel anger
BRITAIN: Grief and sorrow at the Grenfell Tower inferno gave way to anger yesterday as residents of the gutted apartment block demanded answers over the litany of failings which led to the disaster.
As fears mounted that the death toll could rise above 100, senior politicians who visited the scene were asked to explain why a series of loopholes had left the inhabitants vulnerable, despite repeated warnings over the past 30 years.
It emerged there have been no updates to Britain’s building fire safety regulations for more than a decade, even though a number of fires abroad suggested they were out of date.
Particular concerns have been raised about the cladding on the outside of buildings for a number of years, which experts say may have intensified the inferno which consumed the 24-storey Kensington block in just 15 minutes.
The search for those who perished in the flats was under way yesterday as the fire brigade warned the painstaking operation could take weeks.
Relations who had still not managed to track down loved ones penned moving tributes on a wall of condolence.
Meanwhile, local authorities across the country began reviews of the cladding on high rise blocks.
Prime Minister Theresa May ordered a public inquiry into the fire as she promised that all residents would be rehoused locally.
It came as police admitted the death toll could reach 100 and senior officers conceded the true scale of the disaster may never be known.
‘‘We need to know what happened; we need to have an explanation of this, we owe that to the families. To the people who have lost loved ones, friends, and the homes in which they lived,’’ May said.
However, she faced criticism for not meeting residents when she visited the scene. She instead attended a briefing with emergency services.
She later defended her actions, saying: ‘‘I wanted a briefing from the emergency services.’’ Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, was heckled by residents as he praised the emergency services. He tried to shake the hand of 7-year-old Kai Ramos, who instead asked: ‘‘How many children died? What are you going to do about it?’’ In contrast Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Leader, hugged relations of the missing at the scene and called for the empty homes of wealthy people in Kensington to be seized for residents made homeless by the fire.
May is struggling to recover her authority and form a government in the wake of the Conservatives’ disastrous election performance.
Nick Robinson, a BBC presenter, suggested that the fire represented the ‘‘biggest political risk’’ facing May and compared it to the situation then President George W Bush faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Shadow chancellor John Mcdonnell urged unions to mobilise more than a million protesters to put pressure on May to stand down in a march on July 1.
The public anger was fuelled by an emerging picture of failings surrounding the safety in the building, including allegations that fire doors had not been fitted, which the police and fire brigade said would form part of their investigation.
Two sources have said not all the front doors in the tower block were fire-proofed. This is significant because official fire brigade advice to stay put in the event of a fire is based on fire doors offering protection to residents told not to leave the building.
Sidani Atmani, 41, said his neighbour on the 15th floor, a man he knew as Stephen, died because he had followed fire brigade instructions to stay in his flat.
‘‘A lot of people died because of what they were told to do,’’ he said. ‘‘It was horrible.’’ If there was a lack of fire doors that may help to explain why the fire spread so rapidly rather than being ‘‘compartmentalised’’.
The local council declined to comment, as did the management company. Information released by Kensington and Chelsea council under a previous Freedom of Information request also suggests Grenfell Tower may not have had a full fire risk assessment since December 2015, despite a full refurbishment completed in May last year.
Experts have been raising concerns for the past 30 years that building regulations concerning fire are not sufficient, especially surrounding fire escapes and the use of cladding to make buildings more energy efficient.
The London Building Acts required external walls to have at least one hour of fire resistance to prevent flames from spreading between flats or entering inside. But that stipulation was scrapped in 1986.
Ronnie King, of the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group, said: ‘‘Not only has the government not completed a review [of regulations] as we asked, they haven’t started one.’’ Gavin Barwell, May’s chief of staff, may face questions in a judge-led public inquiry after being accused of ‘‘sitting on’’ a review into building regulations.
– Telegraph Group