‘Everyone felt really helpless’

Here are some witness accounts of the Grenfell Tower blaze.

A panicked parent was seen throwing her children from a window in the block shortly after 2am, one witness said.

Joe Walsh, 58, said: “I saw the parent throw two kids out of the window.

“I don’t know where they landed because I was on the other side.

“I doubt anyone caught them, I hope they did.

“It wasn’t that high up – it would have been the fifth or sixth floor up.

“There were still people screaming at quarter to four this morning.”

Student Tiago Etienne, 17, said he also saw families throw their children out of windows.

He said he saw people drop from around the 15th floor but it was hard to tell in the darkness of the early hours.

He said: “I saw about three children between the ages of four and eight being thrown.”

He said he thought they were being sent down to firefighters because they were not letting the civilians who were there get close.

The screams of the residents had alerted him to the fire.

He said: “I could hear the screaming.

“From where I was it sounded like people were directly outside.

“It was loud. It was terrible.”

A long-time neighbour to the block, who saw the destruction unfold, said she at first feared terrorists were responsible.

Muna Ali, 45, said: “The flames, I have never seen anything like it, it just reminded me of 9/11.

“The fire started on the upper floors ... oh my goodness, it spread so quickly, it had completely spread within half an hour.

“My friends live on the fourth floor, someone knocked on their door, they didn’t know and they got out. They have three children.

“Some people were knocking on doors but the people inside didn’t open the door.

“I have lived here almost 21 years and I have never seen anything like this, at first I thought it was terrorism, we were just panicking.”

Eyewitness Samira told BBC News: “It escalated really quickly.

“Around midnight the fire was only around the third floor and then, before you know it, the whole 23 (sic) floors of the building were all on fire and there were people screaming for help and throwing kids out.

“I think everyone felt really helpless because no one could get to them.

“Everyone was really scared and they didn’t know what to do and it was really sad to see.

“These are all people that we grew up with and people that we see every day, like our neighbours.”