Tower residents face mass evacuation
BRITAIN: Dangerous tower blocks housing thousands of people could be evacuated over the weekend, the British Government admitted yesterday, after tests showed at least 11 other buildings have combustible cladding similar to that blamed for the Grenfell Tower fire.
An estimated 600 high-rise blocks have been covered in cladding in England alone, all of which are now undergoing urgent tests to discover whether the panels contain the flammable material that made Grenfell a death trap.
Three of the buildings that failed the tests were refurbished by the same firm that fitted cladding to Grenfell, using the same highly flammable material.
Councils have been told in a letter from the Department for Communities and Local Government to ‘‘move all residents out of the block’’ if buildings are deemed by fire brigades to be unsafe. It could lead to the first mass evacuation since World War II, with local authorities already scrambling to find temporary accommodation should it be needed.
Downing Street insisted that ‘‘nobody will stay in a building that is unsafe’’, but Theresa May faced criticism over the Government’s response to the fire after it emerged that councils were only told to send cladding samples for testing on Monday - five days after the Grenfell Tower fire.
Around 200,000 people are thought to live in the 600 blocks covered in cladding for which samples have been sent for testing to the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in London.
Although 11 cladding samples have failed combustibility tests, at least three other buildings in the same council areas are known to have identical cladding that has not yet been tested. The 11 samples came from buildings in eight council areas, including the five-block Chalcots Estate in Camden, north London, and the three-block Mount Wise estate in Plymouth. Tower blocks in Manchester also failed the tests.
Camden council said the cladding panels at the Chalcots Estate which will now be removed - were of the same design as those at Grenfell: highly flammable polyethelene between layers of aluminium. The council hired the construction firm Rydon to carry out the work, and has now discovered that ‘‘the panels that were fitted were not to the standard that we had commissioned’’. It is now considering legal action.
May said ‘‘no stone will be left unturned’’ in the inquiry she has ordered into the Grenfell inferno.
Nicholas Holgate, who resigned on Wednesday as chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea council, is on course to receive a six-figure pay-off despite being forced from his post over the council’s shambolic response to the tragedy. - Telegraph Group
Car bomb outside bank
A car bomb exploded outside a bank in Lashkar Gah, capital of the southern Afghan province of Helmand yesterday, killing and wounding dozens of civilians and members of the security forces waiting to collect their pay, officials said. Omar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said at least 34 people had been killed and more than 60 wounded, including members of the police and army, civilians and staff of the New Kabul Bank branch where the suicide attack took place. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast.
Sequoia on the move
Not very often does a 10-storey-tall, 363 tonne landmark change locations. Especially one that’s alive. A massive sequoia sent to Boise, Idaho, as a small seedling by naturalist John Muir more than a century ago is now in the way of a hospital’s expansion and plans are to move it two blocks to a city property. ‘‘We’ve all got our fingers crossed that the tree is going to make it to its new location,’’ said Mary Grandjean, the granddaughter of an Idaho forester who received the sequoia seedlings from Muir around 1912. St Luke’s Health System is spending $300,000 to move the largest sequoia in the state, rather than chopping it down and risking a public relations backlash.
Mini-crossbows banned
Powerful mini-crossbows that shoot toothpicks and needles are the new must-have toy for schoolkids across China - and a nightmare for concerned parents and school officials. Chinese media report that several cities have already banned sales of the palm-sized contraptions, which sell for about $1 and are powerful enough to puncture soda cans, apples and cardboard, depending on the projectile. The fad appears to have sprung out of the southwest city of Chengdu but quickly spread to China’s east coast and even across the border to Hong Kong. Reports say parents across China have raised concerns with schools, with many calling for a nationwide ban. Taobao and JD.com, China’s two most popular e-commerce sites, have blocked sales.