The Kensington inferno
IN a scene like the aftermath of a bomb blast, a pocket of flames licks up the wall of a kitchen in Grenfell Tower – at least 24 hours after the inferno.
The image from inside the fire- ravaged flats shows a fridge warped out of shape and the charred remains of an oven and washing machine in the debris-strewn room which was once the heart of someone’s home.
The walls and ceiling are blackened and the window panes appear to have been blown out. Possessions are scattered across the floor, most no longer recognisable apart from what look like a couple of drying stands.
The harrowing photo was among several posted on Twitter around noon yesterday as the first pictures showing what is left of the interior of the tower block emerged. ‘These are shock- ing images. Hopefully they will shock us all so this never happens again,’ wrote the man who posted them on the social media site.
Accompanying images of the flats’ now ghostly interior further highlighted the destruction wrought by the intense ferocity of the blaze.
In one, a group of firemen carrying out searches are pictured kitted out with special-
‘Screaming everywhere’
ist equipment in a scene reminiscent of their US counterparts after the 9/11 terrorist atrocity.
A separate set of images, taken from a video filmed on a mobile phone by a Good Samaritan who had rushed to help, also shows the mangled wreckage inside the 24storey block.
Local painter Hassan Kaissi, 42, went to the scene after finding out about the fire. The father- of-four, who lives a mile from Grenfell Tower, spent five-and-a-half hours helping fire crews and pointing out residents in the building who needed help.
He filmed the video afterwards. It includes scenes of the water-logged basement as he walked through a mass off wreckage and fire hoses.
Yesterday Mr Kaissi said: ‘I was breaking my [Ramadan] fast at about 2.30am when my sister sent me a message about the fire.
‘I dropped everything and went straight there in my car. As I was driving the roads were empty except for a few police cars heading in the same direction.
‘When I arrived, I saw a friend by the cordon and had heard that the family of some friends were inside the building. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do something to help so I decided to climb over the railings.
‘I saw the door to Grenfell Towers open so I went into the building. People were
screaming everywhere. I went to climb the stairs but a fireman told me not to, that he’d just have to rescue me too, so I didn’t go in.
‘Two minutes later a piece of debris fell exactly where I was standing. There were a lot of families who had been rescued sitting outside, and I was trying to help them. All of the firemen were saying that they’d never seen anything like it before.
‘I went into the building beside Grenfell Tower on Clarendon Walk and there was a dead body in the entrance. I was told that the person had jumped from the building and nearly hit a fireman on the way down. It was unbelievable. I was feeling so bad the whole time.’
Grim photos taken yesterday of the outside of the block showed that its controversial cladding now survives only on parts of the lower levels – and was stripped away all around and above the fourth floor flat on the north side of the tower where the fire is believed to have begun before it tore through the building.