12 killed, 74 injured in London tower blaze
‘IT WAS LIKE HORROR MOVIE, SMOKE WAS COMING FROM EVERYWHERE’
A t least 12 people were killed, 74 injured and many others missing yesterday as a fire ripped through a high-rise apartment building in west London where residents had long warned of the potential risk of a catastrophic blaze.
“I do anticipate that the number of fatalities will sadly increase beyond those 12,” Metropolitan Police commander Stuart Cundy said in a televised address.
A thick plume of smoke could be seen for miles around, while witnesses reported people jumping from parts of the 24-storey building after being trapped by the advancing flames.
Children banged on closed windows as they were enveloped by the dark smoke. A woman dropped her baby from at least a dozen storeys up, desperately hoping someone would catch it in the streets below.
The tower is home to between 600 and 800 residents and has one stairway through which people could escape, residents told AFP.
“It was like a horror movie, smoke was coming from everywhere,” said building resident Adeeb, who hobbled down nine flights of stairs on crutches with his wife and three daughters.
Adeeb, who declined to give his last name, said there had been no alarms, and that he only learned of the fire when his daughter woke him.
“We could see a lot of children and parents screaming for ‘Help! Help! Help!’ and putting their hands on the window and asking to help them,” Amina Sharif, a witness, said.
The owner of Grenfell Tower placed its fire safety policy under review last year and ordered multiple changes to the way it handled fire risk in its properties, including speeding up the installation of selfclosing doors, tackling hoarding and dealing with clutter in communal areas that posed a fire risk.
The review of fire safety policy by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO) was under way at the same time as residents in the Grenfell Action Group warned about “dangerous living conditions” in November .
It said in a blog post: “It is our conviction that a serious fire in a tower block or similar high density residential property is the most likely reason that those who wield power at the KCTMO will be found out”.
KCTMO was handed a “deficiency notice” last year by the London fire brigade after it audited another of its properties — Lonsdale House on the Portobello Court Estate. It related to flat entrance doors and the requirement for KCTMO to regularly inspect self-closing devices. According to board papers for November 2016, KCTMO, which owns and manages several tower blocks in the area, admitted it needed to adopt “a more proactive approach to the installation of self-closing devices to flat entrance doors across the stock”, said it would increase the frequency of the comprehensive fire risk assessment reviews, install fire action notices in the entrance lobbies of all blocks and undertake “further work to address the issue of storage and charging of mobility scooters within communal areas”.
It said the TMO needed “a more coordinated approach with the various agencies involved with hoarders — adopt a clear procedure involving an assessment by our fire consultant”, as well as “clarity on the requirements of a communal storage ‘managed use’ policy — what is and what is not acceptable”.
The block underwent a £10.3 million (Dh48.4 million) renovation that was completed in May 2016. In January that year, Grenfell Action Group raised concern about the single emergency exit to the building in 2016, warning if that exit were to become blocked in a fire, people would be trapped inside.
The building works were criticised by the Grenfell Action Group, which said the installation of new water heaters in the hallways of many of the flats made the already tight access even more cramped.