Fifty people are injured and six fatalities are confirmed after a fire raged through a tower block overnight in West London. Eyewitnesses report seeing residents throw themselves from the building.
The first reports of the fire at Grenfell Tower, north Kensington, came in at 00:54 BST Wednesday morning. All floors from the second floor upwards were affected. Six people have died, but that figure is likely to rise, the Metropolitan Police have confirmed. A number of people are still unaccounted for.
The BBC’s Andy Moore said the whole 24-storey block had been alight and there were fears the building might collapse. Eyewitnesses told the BBC they saw people trapped inside their homes and were unable to use exits to escape the building.
Smoke rises from a building on fire in London, Wednesday, June 14, 2017. A massive fire raced through the 27-story high-rise apartment building in west London early Wednesday, sending at least 30 people to hospitals, emergency officials said. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Multiple witnesses told Sky News they saw people jumping from windows and balconies to escape the blaze.
London Fire Brigade Commissioner Dany Cotton has confirmed there have been “a number of fatalities”.
At least 50 people, revised from 30 since Wednesday morning, have been injured and taken to five hospitals across the city.
In this image made from video provided by Mischa Saag, a building is on fire in London, Wednesday, June 14, 2017. Firefighters are battling a massive fire in an apartment high-rise in London. (Mischa Saag via AP)
Twenty ambulances were sent to the scene and medics from the hazardous response team, who are trained in life-saving medical care in hazardous environments, were also deployed.
London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner Dan Daly said firefighters were “working extremely hard in very difficult conditions to tackle this fire”.
“This is a large and very serious incident and we have deployed numerous resources and specialist appliances.”
The tower block contained 120 flats and was recently refurbished including new exterior cladding and a communal heating system. Residents who escaped have told the media they did not hear a fire alarm, with one resident telling Sky News many people would not have escaped the building had they not been awoken by the sound of screaming.
In this photo taken from video, smoke rises from a high-rise apartment building on fire in London, Wednesday, June 14, 2017. A massive fire raced through the 27-story high-rise apartment building in west London early Wednesday, sending at least 30 people to hospitals, emergency officials said. (Sky News via AP)
Seventh-floor resident Paul Munakr told the BBC: “As I was going down the stairs, there were firefighters, truly amazing firefighters that were actually going upstairs, to the fire, trying to get as many people out the building as possible.”
He said he was alerted to the fire not by fire alarms but by people on the street below, shouting “don’t jump, don’t jump”.
“Now, honestly I don’t know for certain if people jumped off the building to get away from the fire, but the main thing for me with this incident is the fact that the fire alarms didn’t go off in the building,” he said.
The Telegraph reports that local Grenfell Action Group had claimed, before and during the refurbishment, the block constituted a fire risk and residents had warned that access to the site for emergency vehicles was “severely restricted”, but the group claims their concerns fell on “deaf ears”.
Though the fire is largely extinguished, flames are still licking out of parts of the building.
The cause is not yet known.
Developing…