Help my baby: mom
Desperate scenes at huge fire
TWO hideous sounds summed up the horror – the screams of children and the sickening thump as people leapt to their deaths.
In scenes akin to New York on 9/11, at least five desperate souls chose to jump from the towering inferno to try to avoid burning to death.
One mother dropped her baby from a ninth-floor window, which was caught by a man holding out a blanket below.
Others tied bed sheets together to try to form ropes while some attempted to make parachutes out of bin liners.
Residents had been advised to stay in their flats and await rescue. But for those who did, the ferocity of the blaze meant they almost certainly perished.
The stairwell – the only escape route – was engulfed in intense heat and black smoke.
As the flames drew nearer, families phoned their loved ones to say goodbye.
Twelve people died and 74 were taken to hospital.
The fate of the 600 residents of Grenfell Tower was sealed just before 12.50am, when the fridge in Flat 16 on the fourth floor apparently exploded into flames.
Neighbour Maryam Adam, 41, said: “He (her neighbour) knocked on the door, and he said there was a fire in his flat. It was exactly 12.50am because I was sleeping and it woke me up.
“When we got up, I saw outside his flat his luggage.
“That means he took the stuff from his flat, and then he told the neighbours.
“The fire was small in the kitchen. There was no alarm.”
At 12.54am, the fire brigade was called, and the first engines arrived within six minutes. But witnesses said the speed at which the fire tore up the tower was incredible – like “a tissue being set alight”.
Chaos and confusion swept through the tower block as residents were woken up by sirens, screams and the smell of acrid smoke.
Samira Lamrini said: “The sound of children begging for help as they were trapped in the upper floors is something I will never forget.”
Within minutes, it became clear that the advice to residents to stay in their flats until help arrived was beginning to cost lives.
Some had left their flats but been ordered back inside by emergency services, it was reported.
Witnesses watched helplessly as people trapped in smoke-filled flats took it in turns to suck breaths of air through windows designed to open only fractionally.
Trapped residents flashed torches, cellphones and even fairy lights from their windows in a desperate attempt to attract the attention of rescuers.Lamrini said: “A woman shouted down frantically for