trapped in hell

People jumped from their flats and some held babies out of windows as blaze consumed 24-storey tower block

London tower block inferno leaves 12 people dead and 75 in hospital Hundreds of residents missing and death toll expected to rise.

Twelve people have died and more are feared dead after a huge fire destroyed a tower block in west London yesterday.

Flames tore through the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in north Kensington overnight, leaving people trapped on upper floors – some holding babies out of windows and others jumping from their flats.

Some bodies have been recovered from the smouldering remains of the block, which contains 120 flats thought to be home to between 400 and 600 people.

Many people remain unaccounted for and last night firefighters were continuing to tackle “pockets of fire”.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the operation had moved from rescue to the “recovery phase”, as emergency crews search for bodies among the charred wreckage.

Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police said: “I can confirm that there are now 12 people that have died that we know of.

“This is going to be a long and complex recovery operation and I do anticipate that the number of fatalities will sadly increase beyond those 12.”

London Fire Brigade said it had rescued 65 people as flames engulfed the block.

Steve Apter, director of safety and assurance at London Fire Brigade, said firefighters had battled through “particularly arduous conditions” to reach the top floor.

Mr Cundy said that while every floor had been accessed, the entire building had not been searched, adding: “I don’t anticipate that there will be further survivors.”

NHS England said 74 patients were treated in six hospitals across London. Thirty four patients remain in hospital including 18 who are in critical care.

There have been calls for a major investigation amid questions about how the fire spread so rapidly.

Built in 1974, Grenfell Tower was recently refurbished at a cost of £8.6 million, with work completed in May last year.

Kensington and Chelsea Borough council admitted it had received complaints over the works, after a resi- dents’ action group said its warnings about safety had fallen on “deaf ears”.

A blog post from Grenfell Action Group in November said “only a catastrophic event” would expose the concerns residents had.

The group said there was one entry and exit to the tower during improvement works and it had issues with evacuation procedures.

Rydon, the firm that carried out the work, said the project “met all required building regulations”, in its latest statement following the fire.

But a line stating that the project had met all “fire regulation and health and safety standards”, which was included in an earlier release, had disappeared.

Witnesses said the fire spread rapidly and traumatic accounts have emerged of the desperate attempts made by residents to flee the flames.

Samira Lamrani said she saw a woman try to save a baby by dropping it from a window “on the ninth or 10th floor” to waiting members of the public below.

Tiago Etienne, 17, heard people pleading for help and saw children being thrown out “from as high as about the 15th floor” to be caught by firefighters and police.

Residents who escaped complained there had been no fire alarm, with many relying on neighbours to wake them as the blaze spread, and said official advice in the event of a fire had been to stay inside.

Michael Paramasivan, who was in his seventh floor flat with girlfriend Hannah West, 23, and her daughter Thea, 5, said: “If we’d listened to them and stayed in the flat we’d have perished.”

The 37-year-old said there were “explosions everywhere you looked”.

Robert Black, chief executive of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, which manages Grenfell Tower, said there had been “no expectation this would happen”.

Asked whether he regretted that the block had not been fitted with sprinklers, he told ITV News London: “This isn’t a new build, it’s a refurbishment. I cannot comment on what these issues are at the moment because I am trying to work out the things on the ground.”