London fire death toll may never be known

LONDON: The death toll from the tower block blaze in west London last week may never be known, because some of the apartments in the building may have been irregularly sublet, according to a lawyer.

At least 79 people lost their lives due to the blaze that destroyed the 24-storey tower block in the Kensington district of the city last Wednesday, according to the London Metropolitan Police. The police said the death toll was expected to rise.

However, Victoria Vasey, director of the North Kensington Law Centre, said that because of the irregular property tenancies, it was impossible to accurately know how many people were in the building at the time of the blaze. “A lot of people were irregular in their tenancies and some were subletting. Some of them were illegal subtenancies.”

The apartments in the building were rented to families and people nominated by local authority the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelesea as part of its legal obligations to provide housing.

The rents of the tenancies were below market levels. Some tenants may have sublet their tenancies illegally to make money.