Fire
engulfed a 24-storey block of flats in central London on Wednesday, killing
some people, injuring at least 50 more and trapping some residents asleep
inside the
towering inferno.
Flames
licked up the sides of the block in the north Kensington area as 200
firefighters, backed up by 40 fire engines, fought the blaze for hours.
Plumes of
black and gray smoke billowed high into the air over the British capital hours
after the blaze broke out at the Grenfell Tower where several hundred people
live.
Residents
rushed to escape through smoke-filled corridors in the housing block after
being woken up by the smell of burning. Some said no fire alarm sounded.
Witnesses
said they saw trapped residents desperately shouting for help from windows on
upper floors as flames enveloped the building.
London Fire
Brigade said the fire engulfed all floors from the second to the top of the
block which contained 130 apartments.
"In my
29 years of being a fire fighter, I have never ever seen anything of this
scale," London Fire Brigade Commissioner Dany Cotton told reporters
"I am
very sad to confirm that there have been a number of fatalities, I cannot
confirm the number at this time due to the size and complexity of this
building."
MORE THAN 50
TAKEN TO HOSPITAL
London
Ambulance Service said more than 50 people had been taken to hospital. A
witness told Reuters she feared not all the residents had escaped the fire.
Some were evacuated in their pyjamas.
"I
looked through the spy hole and I could see smoke everywhere and the neighbors
are all there. There's a fireman shouting 'get down the stairs'," one of
the block's residents, Michael Paramasivan, told BBC radio. "It was an inferno."
"As we
went past the fourth floor it was completely thick black smoke. As we’ve gone
outside I’m looking up at the block and it was just going up. It was like
pyrotechnics. It was just unbelievable how quick it was burning."
The cause of
the fire, which broke out just before 1 a.m. (0000 GMT), was not known, the
Fire Brigade said.
Residents
said repairs had been made recently to the exterior of the block.
Ash Sha, 30,
who witnessed the fire and has an aunt in the building who managed to escape from
the second floor, said the local council had renovated the tower.
"One
year ago the council renovated the building both externally and
internally," Sha said.
"They
cladded the outside and insulated the inside. The insulated material is very
similar to sponge so it crumbles in your hand. This was just done to tart it up
and match the nearby building."
The local
council of Kensington and Chelsea, which owns the block, said its focus was on
supporting the rescue and relief operation. It said the causes of the fire
would be fully investigated.
More than 20
ambulance crews were at the scene. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said a "major
incident" had been declared. Police closed the A40, a major road leading
out of west London, while some parts of London's underground train network were
closed as a precaution.
"There
was bits of building falling off all around me, I scalded my shin on a hot
piece of metal that had fallen off the building," said Jodie Martin, who
lives close to the building and sought to save people from the fire.
"I was
just screaming at people: 'Get out, get out' and they were screaming back at
me: 'We can't, the corridors are full of smoke'," he told BBC Radio.
For graphic
on London tower block fire, click: tmsnrt.rs/2s8WyqH
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