Hour after hour, pounding the streets in frantic search
After seven hours spent rushing from hospital to hospital, hunting for their loved ones, finally there was a glimmer of hope. A kind nurse at St Mary’s Hospital took pity on the family of Farah Hamdan and Omar Belkadi, who were last seen on the 20th floor of Grenfell Tower, and went to search her beds, armed with descriptions of the couple, their two elder daughters – Malek, seven, and Tazmin, six – and their six-month-old baby girl, Leena.
“She went away and then came down and said: ‘there is a child that matches one of the descriptions’,” says Adel Chaoui, one of Farah’s cousins, who has been pounding the streets looking for them since Wednesday morning. “They were taken up and stood around the bed sobbing. She was sedated at the time.” The family soon realised that another of the girls was in an adjacent bed, in a coma.
Their joy at finding the girls was cut short as the realisation dawned that Farah, Omar and Leena were not with them. Both Malek and Tazmin remain in a critical condition in hospital, while there is still no news of their parents and baby sister. With family members taking shifts to be with them, others – including Adel – continue the search.
They had already been to three or four other hospitals before finding the girls at St Mary’s. The only way to continue the search is to keep going back to Chelsea and Westminster, to King’s College, to UCH.
The family don’t know whether the parents tried to escape with their daughters. “We think they made a run for it,” says Adel. “I’m hopeful that they got out, which is why I’m trawling hospitals and trying to extract information from the police.”
Adel has learnt that Farah, 31, called one of her sisters in the early hours of Wednesday morning, frantic. “She was
“biggest political risk” facing the Prime Minister. Sky News reported that “political opportunists” could be among the crowds at the tower after a press conference was punctuated by residents shouting support for Mr Corbyn.
The public anger was fuelled by an emerging picture of safety failings, including claims fire doors had not been fitted, which the police and fire brigade said would form part of their investigation. Two sources have said not all the front doors were fire-proofed. This is significant because official fire brigade advice to stay put in the event of a fire is based on fire doors offering protection to residents told not to leave the building.
Sidani Atmani, 41, said his neighbour on the 15th floor, a man he knew as Stephen, died because he had followed fire brigade instructions to stay in his flat.
If there was a lack of fire doors, that may help explain why the fire spread so rapidly rather than being “compartmentalised”. Kensington and Chelsea council declined to comment, as did the management company. Information released by the council under a previous Freedom of Information request also suggests Grenfell Tower may not have had a full fire risk assessment since December 2015, despite a full refurbishment completed in May last year.
Experts have been raising concerns for the past 30 years that building regulations concerning fire are not sufficient, especially surrounding fire escapes and the use of cladding.
Ronnie King, of the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group, said: “Not only has the Government not completed a review [of regulations] as we asked, they haven’t started one.” Gavin Barwell, Mrs May’s chief of staff, may face questions in a judge-led public inquiry after being accused of “sitting on” a review into building regulations.
Lily Allen, the singer, said last night that there was “a lot of anger” towards the council, and added that the humanitarian effort was “chaotic”.