USA TODAY International Edition
Prime Minister May orders inquiry into London blaze
At least 17 dead, many injured and missing in high- rise apartment fire
Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday ordered a full public inquiry into the worst highrise blaze in London in recent memory that killed at least 17 people after a tenants' group complained about safety hazards for years.
The cause of the blaze is not known, but London Police Commander Stuart Cundy said that there is no suggestion it was terror- related.
Investigators are trying to determine why the fire spread so quickly to the top floors of the building when only last year the residential complex underwent a $ 13 million refurbishment that included a new thermal cladding to the building's exterior.
"We need to know what happened, we need to know an explanation," May said, announcing the inquiry. "We owe that to the families." British public inquiries can take months and even years to complete, and they don’t end in criminal prosecutions.
The death toll, which currently stands at 17, is expected to increase as emergency workers sift through more wreckage at the residential building in west London’s North Kensington district. The fire also injured dozens, 18 of them critically. Thirty people are still hospitalized.
Dany Cotton, London's fire chief, said authorities don’t expect to find anyone else alive and that they "genuinely don’t know" how many people died in the incident.
The Grenfell Action Group, the tenants' organization, had expressed concerns since 2013 about the testing and maintenance of firefighting equipment and blocked emergency access to the site. “All our warnings fell on deaf ears and we predicted that a catastrophe like this was inevitable,” the group said after the fire broke out, according to the Associated Press.
In a blog post written last year, the Grenfell Action Group warned of "dangerous living conditions" in the tower. "It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO."
KCTMO, the Kensington and Chelsea Management Organization, has managed the building on behalf of local public authorities who own it. The management organization said it was aware of the complaints made by residents, but that it was "too early to speculate what caused the fire and contributed to its spread."
The British government said checks on similar towers that were refurbished recently would take place.
Investigators are still searching for victims and the families of those unaccounted for have been appealing on social media for information. Witnesses described harrowing scenes as the building became an inferno on Wednesday with people, including children, jumping out of windows to escape the blaze.
The Grenfell Tower has 20 floors of apartments and 4 floors of mixed- use residential and office space. How many people were in the building during the fire is not known. Up to 600 people lived in the building's 120 apartments.
Firefighters extinguished the last of the flames Thursday and the top floors of the building are still being searched, but Cotton told Sky News that due to the intensity of the heat it would be "an absolute miracle for anyone to be left alive."
Around 200 firefighters responded to the incident and Cotton said that some were traumatized. "They are heroes but they have feelings, and people were absolutely devastated," he said.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip also spoke about the firefighters on Thursday. "Prince Philip and I would like to pay tribute to the bravery of firefighters and other emergency services officers who put their own lives at risk to save others," the queen said.
The BBC reported that one family with five children all under the age of ten were missing.