Sorrow turns to anger
Residents of burnt-out tower block demand answers as it emerges a litany of failings led to inferno now feared to have killed up to 100
GRIEF and sorrow at the Grenfell Tower inferno last night gave way to anger as residents of the gutted block demanded answers over the litany of failings which led to the disaster.
As fears mounted that the death toll could rise above 100, the Government and Kensington and Chelsea council were coming under pressure to explain why a series of loopholes had left the inhabitants vulnerable, despite repeated warnings over the past 30 years.
Britain’s building fire safety regulations have not been updated for more than a decade, even though a series of fires abroad suggested they are out of date. Particular concerns have been raised for a number of years about the cladding on the outside of buildings, which experts say may have intensified the inferno which consumed the 24-storey Kensington block in just 15 minutes.
It emerged last night that the United States had banned the type of cladding thought to have encased Grenfell Tower for fire safety reasons.
Reynobond, the aluminium panels, come in three varieties: one with a plastic core and two with fire-resistant cores. It is thought the cheaper, more combustible, version was used for Grenfell. A salesman for Us-based Reynobond told The Times that this version, which has a polyethylene core, was banned in US buildings above 40 feet (12.2 metres) on safety grounds.
Reynobond’s fire-resistant panel sells for £24 per square metre, £2 more expensive than the standard version.
Last night, the search for those who perished in the flats was under way 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.
Theresa May yesterday ordered a public inquiry into the fire as she promised that all residents would be rehoused locally.
As police admitted the death toll could reach 100, senior officers conceded the true scale of the disaster may never be known. Officers also said some of the victims may never be formally identified.
Mrs May said: “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.”
The Prime Minister faced criticism for not meeting residents when she visited the scene. She attended a briefing with emergency services. She later defended her actions, saying: “I wanted a briefing from the emergency services.”
Tobias Ellwood, the defence minister, told BBC’S Question Time last night that “security concerns” stopped Mrs May meeting residents.
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, was heckled by residents as he praised the emergency services. He tried to shake the hand of seven-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.
Mrs May is struggling to recover her authority and form a government in the wake of the Conservatives’ disastrous election performance.
Nick Robinson, the BBC presenter, suggested that the fire represented the
‘A sevenyear-old boy asked Sadiq Khan: “How many children died? What are you going to do about it?”’
begging her, saying: ‘what should I do, what should I do?’ And eventually when her sister saw that people were being told to get out, get out now, she told her to do that.
“As I understand it, she was blocked from doing so. If that’s blocked by smoke, by fire, or officials, or neighbours, I don’t know.
“Is it a case of them being younger girls and their lungs needing less air to get down? Or maybe a neighbour brought them down, or they managed to get down to a floor that the fire brigade were present in.”
Two days have passed since fire engulfed the Grenfell Tower, and hundreds of families like Adel’s are still searching for their loved ones.
Since yesterday morning, Adel has been cycling between hospitals and back to the Red Cross centre which has been set up at Latimer Road, trying to find Farah, Omar and baby Leena. If it weren’t for the kindness of the nurse at St Mary’s and the work of the Red Cross, Adel says they may still be without any news. That they have had to beg for news is unthinkable.
“We have had no help from the police. We understand that they’re busy, but they’ve got casualties in the hospitals,” says Adel. “The hospitals had no idea who these children were – they didn’t even realise they were related.”
After the hospitals, the logical next step was the mortuary. “Last night I was going to cycle off to Westminster mortuary,” says Adel.
“They refused to pick up the phone and I was convinced by other family members not to go.”
In the past 24 hours, the Red Cross has begun to pull together a civil list, as people have stopped using the casualty line set up by police, and turned to the immediate community at Latimer Road in their search for sightings of their loved ones.
“The Tenants’ Management Organisation had started a list and it was taken off them by the police,” Adel tells me. “There is an enormous amount of goodwill there and people would say ‘oh yes I knew her from the lifts and I saw her’, or ‘I didn’t see her’.
“Every time we hear a rumour we’re having to react to find out if it’s our family. I bumped into many people in hospitals yesterday who were finding the exact same thing. There was an elderly West African lady with a walking stick desperately trying to find her loved ones.”
Adel, who like his cousin Farah was born and bred in west London, was heading home for some much-needed rest when I spoke to him yesterday afternoon. He hadn’t yet been to visit Tazmin and Malek, believing that he could be of far more use to them trying to find their parents.
“I won’t stop searching,” he says. “What we need is a statement – even if just to the families to say everyone at the hospital has been identified, if you’ve not been contacted, then don’t waste your time at hospitals.
“As much as it would be awful if my family is not [in a hospital], at least it allows me to put that part of it to rest and prepare myself for the worst.”
For now, Adel is hoping against hope that Farah and Omar and their baby are unconscious but alive in a hospital, unable to identify themselves.
“I want my aunt to have some sort of closure. I want her family to not be running around lost, wondering where the parents of these two beautiful girls are. That’s her daughter and her grandchildren.”