PM ORDERS PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO TOWER BLAZE AS DEATH TOLL RISES
As urban search and rescue teams and specially-trained dogs scour through the charred wreckage of Grenfell Tower in a search for bodies, here Ryan Hooper and Dominic Harris look at key aspects of the investigation into the cause of the horrific blaze...
POLICE fear they may not be able to identify everybody killed in the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Six bodies have so far been recovered from the gutted 24-storey tower, while 11 have been located inside but cannot be removed.
The death toll from the blaze is 17, but that figure is expected to rise significantly.
Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy said: “It may be – and I just don’t know – it may be that ultimately some victims remain unidentified. I won’t know that until we’ve gone through the full recovery from Grenfell Tower and we know exactly what we’ve got and I anticipate that is going to take a considerable period of time.
“Not just the immediate recovery of the bodies we have found but the full search of that whole building we could be talking weeks we could be talking months – it is a very long process. There is a risk that sadly we may not be able to identify everybody.”
His comments came as Prime Minister Theresa May ordered a full public inquiry into the disaster.
Mr Cundy’s voice at one stage cracked as he spoke to reporters about the emotional toll the disaster had taken on him.
While refusing to speculate on whether the total number dead would reach triple figures, he said: “From a personal perspective, I really hope it isn’t, for those of us that have been down there, it’s pretty emotional, so I hope it is not triple figures, but I can’t be drawn on the numbers.”
A criminal investigation has been launched in the wake of the fatal fire amid increasing political pressure that those involved in the building’s recent redevelopment should face prosecution.
“We as the police have started an investigation, I mentioned when I was down at the scene this morning that one of our very senior investigating officers is leading that for us,” the commander said. “We as the police, we investigate criminal offences – I am not sitting here and saying there are criminal offences that have been committed, that’s why you do an investigation, to establish it. This will need to be a lot of work between us and other investigating agencies to establish what has happened and why and that is going to take a considerable period of time.”
During the chaotic first day of the investigation, the police’s casualty bureau was said to have received 5,000 calls.
Around 400 people were reported missing, but Mr Cundy downplayed the figure, saying it added up to more people than actually lived in the block. One person was reported missing 46 times, he added. In other developments: One of the first victims was named as 23-year-old Syrian refugee Mohammed Alhajali;
a total of 30 people continue to receive hospital treatment, of which 15 are still in critical care;
London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called for a “proper investigation” into what went wrong;
“Many” firefighters were described as being “traumatised” by what they faced;
Labour’s Tottenham MP David Lammy called for a criminal investigation into what happened;
MPs gathered in Westminster Hall to question Fire Minister Nick Hurd about the blaze;
the Queen paid tribute to the “bravery” of firefighters, and praised volunteers;
Detective Chief Inspector Matt Bonner from the homicide and major crime command has been appointed to lead the investigation;
Pop star Adele, who is originally from Tottenham in north London, also paid a low-key visit to the site in the early hours yesterday to help with the relief effort;
Scores of families are preparing to spend a second night in temporary accommodation.
Speaking from the scene in west London, Mr Cundy said: “Our absolute priority for all of us is about identifying and locating those people that are still missing. It would be wrong for me to get into numbers that I do not believe are accurate.
“We do believe that that number [17] will sadly increase.”
The fire was finally extinguished shortly after 1am – a full 24 hours after the first alarms were raised – paving the way for tentative searches in Grenfell’s worst-affected parts to begin once it is declared safe.
Explaining the nature of the investigation, London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said: “This is a large building, there will be a large amount of building work required internally. Before we do that, we are going to utilise some specialist dog training teams that we have, that will go through the building and the surrounding area looking for any identification of people.
“The benefit of using those dogs is clearly they are much lighter than people and they can cover a greater area in a very short space of time.
“I anticipate that London Fire Brigade will be on scene here for many days to come, working with our partners to ensure that we do the best for the people who are waiting for news of their loved ones.”
She said “a good half” of the building had yet to be searched in detail, adding: “It is the upper floors which will be more challenging and will need some additional shoring up for us to be able to get in there.”
Ms Cotton added: “This will be a detailed fingertip search.
“Obviously this will be a very slow and painstaking process.”
More than £1m has been raised to help those affected by the fire, with more than 60 tonnes of donations collected by one local mosque.
AFIREFIGHTER who helped tackle the Grenfell Tower blaze has compared the scene to a “war zone”.
The emergency worker, called Terry, who spent eight hours working at the scene in North Kensington, said he had “seen nothing like it” during his 27 years with the fire service.
He told LBC Radio: “We had to literally run under police riot shields because of the amount of flaming debris, just to get into the building. There was one small staircase that everyone was going up. It was just like the images of 9/11.
“We were going up the staircase and people were coming down in smoke. I don’t know how they were breathing.”
Terry said he went up as far as the 10th floor, adding: “The amount of kit that this job has absorbed from the London Fire Brigade is unbelievable. It’s like a war zone here.”
The firefighter, who worked in the aftermath of the IRA bombing at Canary Wharf in 1996, said no amount of planning could prepare the emergency services to deal with a fire so catastrophic.
Describing the carnage and desperation of people trapped in their flats, he added: “One of my colleagues was hit by someone who jumped out of a window.
“To see a whole 24-storey building go up in flames – how does that happen? How does that happen in a first world country? How it happens in London in 2017 is anyone’s guess.”
Meanwhile, London’s Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton yesterday warned that firefighters who tried to rescue residents as they tackled the blaze could face future psychological issues.
Ms Cotton said the tough conditions and shocking scenes they faced, including a child being thrown from a window, had traumatised many.
London Fire Brigade said more than 200 firefighters and 40 fire engines attended the scene after the blaze ripped through the 24-storey block.
She told Sky News: “They were in and out of that building, committing time after time to rescue the people we knew were in there. There was never any hesitation.
“As the commissioner of the London Fire Brigade I was truly anxious for a long time about the safety of the building and my firefighters in there, but they were never going to stop until they physically could not get in there any more.
“The thing that worries me going forward is the psychological effect. A lot of my firefighters yesterday experienced things they have never seen before.
“I spoke to some people who were truly distressed – not least because they knew there were people still in there and they were battling through the heat to get there.
“What happened yesterday truly traumatised a lot of people.”
The firefighters “were in fear of their own lives” as they went into the building which was “alight from top to bottom”, according to Ms Cotton.
She said the firefighters had been particularly affected by the desperation of one family who threw a baby from a window in a bid to save it.
She told Sky News: “For my crews who were on the ground who witnessed it happening it was truly horrible and shocking.
“I spoke to one of my officers who was very near when someone came out of the window, he was in tears. He is a professional fire officer.
“We like to think of ourselves as roughty-tufty and as heroes but they have feelings. People were absolutely devastated by yesterday’s events.”
Firefighters may be at risk of developing mental health problems given the kinds of tragic scene they witness on the job, according to a 2016 blog by William Murphy of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).
Crew members may need counselling after fatal incidents but there is a huge stigma surrounding mental health in the fire service.
The FBU pointed to research published by mental health charity Mind showing that 40% of firefighters have been prescribed anti-depressants and 36% believed they would be treated in a negative way if they disclosed a mental health problem.
FBU national officer Sean Starbuck said: “The absolutely devastating scenes that firefighters witnessed at Grenfell will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
“They are heroic men and women who just get on with the job and don’t complain, but at the end of the day, they’re human and will be affected by what they see.
“The priority today is to make sure that everything possible is done to take care of their mental wellbeing after such a horrific disaster. All firefighters need to know that it is okay to say I’m not okay.”
AMONG the grief of those mourning loved ones lost in the wreckage of Grenfell Tower, and the anguish of those desperately searching for information on the missing, one question hangs in the air alongside the fetid stench of a burning building: How did this happen?
Theresa May has promised a “proper investigation” into how the 24-storey building went up in flames in the early hours of Wednesday, amid reports from witnesses that the blaze engulfed the entire building within an hour.
The tower itself was built in 1974 and contained 120 flats, thought to be home to between 400 and 600 people.
Community leaders said the building was likely to have been “full” with people, although the number of residents awake when the fire took hold observing the Muslim festival of Ramadan may have helped raise the alarm, they said.
The building was refurbished last year at a cost of £8.6m, but a local action group said their concerns about safety went unanswered.
Here are some of the key aspects of the investigation and the possible cause of the fire...
Cladding Concerns had been raised about the fire risk of cladding as far back as 2000 in a parliamentary report.
The Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee launched an inquiry after a blaze tore through a 14-storey block of flats in Irvine, Ayrshire, in June 1999, killing an elderly man.
It concluded that cladding should be non-combustible or not pose an unacceptable level of risk to tenants.
Local activist Piers Thompson said “the entire fascia went up like it was paper and tinder and balsa wood”.
Rydon, the firm that carried out the Grenfell Tower refurbishment work, said in a statement following the fire that the project “met all required building regulations”.
Harley Facades Limited, which installed the cladding, said it was “not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding to the tower”.
Gas Residents had raised concerns about exposed gas pipes at Grenfell Tower weeks before the devastating blaze.
The Grenfell Leasehold Association (GLA) asked for an “independent adjudicator” to examine the installation of the pipes but were refused by management company Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO).
The GLA also raised concerns about health and safety issues around exposed pipes.
Renovations to replace new gas risers, which bring in supplies from street level, were carried out earlier this year by National Grid Gas Distribution, rebranded as Cadent at the end of March.
In a statement on Wednesday, Cadent said pipes in the stairwells had been boxed in using fire-proof material that could withstand flames for two hours, but that work was still being done to box in pipes running along floors.
A spokeswoman for the company said: “All our gas work was carried out to regulatory standards.”
Fridge London Fire Brigade said the cause of the fire was still being investigated, but several residents reported seeing one man claiming it started with his faulty fridge.
Witnesses said the fire spread rapidly and traumatic accounts have emerged of the desperate attempts made by residents to flee the flames.
Samira Lamrani, 38, said: “He was just beside himself.
“He was just as surprised at how quickly the fire spread as anybody else.
“I could hear him saying that he contacted the emergency services immediately and they reassured him everything would be under control within a short period of time, and obviously it wasn’t.”
London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said crews had been to “the flat of (the fire’s) origin” but declined to give further details about where in the building it was located.
“Stay-put” protocol Questions have been raised about the instructions, put up on every floor of the 24-storey building, telling people to remain in their flats in the event of a fire.
Residents were told their large fire doors would keep any blaze at bay and allow them to be rescued, safely, within the hour.
But as the flames tore through the tower, residents were faced with little choice but to overrule the instructions and take their lives in their own hands.
Witnesses described seeing residents fashion makeshift parachutes, another said a woman dropped her baby “from the ninth or 10th floor” to a rescuer below, while others were flinging themselves from windows.
Local councillor Judith Blakeman said: “The residents have expressed concern over several years about the fire safety at the block and they’ve constantly been reassured, (being told), ‘No, it’s okay, your flat is secure for an hour unless you’re close to the fire. Stay in your flat and you’ll be rescued within the hour by the fire brigade’.”
She said she feared there could be enormous casualty numbers, saying: “That is our worry, because the block went up so quickly and the instruction is to ‘stay in your flats, you will be safe for an hour’.”