Arkivbild. (NIKLAS HALLE'N / AFP)

Flydde in i samma lägenhet – dog: ”Total förödelse”

Majoriteten av de 80 personer som befaras döda efter branden i Grenfell Tower för två veckor sedan befann sig i 23 av byggnadens 129 lägenheter. Enligt polisen försökte vissa boende undkomma elden och röken genom att ta sig längre upp i byggnaden. Troligen tog sig flera av dem in i en och samma lägenhet.

– Förödelsen i lägenheterna är total, säger polischefen Fiona McCormack till BBC.

Hon säger också att man försöker förbereda vissa familjer på att deras saknade anhörigas kvarlevor aldrig kommer att hittas. Boende som är skeptiska till den officiella dödssiffran har nu börjar upprätta egna listor över saknade och överlevande, skriver The Guardian.

bakgrund
 
Branden i Grenfell Tower
Wikipedia (en)
The Grenfell Tower fire started on 14 June 2017 at Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey, 220-foot (67 m) high tower block of public housing flats in North Kensington, west London. It resulted in at least 80 fatalities and over 70 injuries. The Metropolitan Police Service has said that 18 victims have been formally identified and a further 61 people are missing and presumed dead. Prime Minister Theresa May said the death toll may rise further. Emergency services received the first report of the fire at 00:54 local time. It burned for about 60 hours until finally extinguished. Initially hundreds of firefighters and 45 fire engines were involved in efforts to control the fire, with many firefighters continuing to attempt to control pockets of fire on the higher floors after most of the rest of the building had been gutted. Residents of surrounding buildings were evacuated due to concerns that the tower could collapse, though the building was later determined to be structurally sound. The tower contained 127 flats, with 227 bedrooms, at the time of the fire. Firefighters rescued 65 people. 74 people were confirmed to be in five hospitals across London; 17 of them were in a critical condition. Searches ceased for a time on 16 June 2017, as the building was thought to be unsafe, but rescuers re-entered on 17 June 2017 and reached the top floor. The fire started in a faulty fridge-freezer in a fourth-floor flat. The speed at which the fire spread is believed to have been increased by the building's exterior cladding. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, criticised the safety guidelines, in particular, those telling people to stay in their flats until rescued by fire services. This advice assumed that the building's structure would contain a fire to a single flat, but in this case the fire was spreading rapidly via the building's exterior. Since 2013, the residents' organisation, Grenfell Action Group, had repeatedly expressed concern about fire safety, saying in November 2016 that only a catastrophic fire would finally force the block's management adequately to address fire precautions and maintenance of fire-related systems. On 16 June 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May, who had been criticised for failing to meet Grenfell Tower residents following the tragedy, announced a £5 million fund for victims of the fire; all those made homeless were to receive an initial down payment of £5,500, with each household to be given at least £500 in cash and £5,000 paid into an account. On 18 June the government announced that a dedicated new response team was taking over the management of the ongoing response to the disaster – acknowledging that the initial response by the state, both locally and nationally, was inadequate. On 21 June, the government announced that 68 new flats in the same borough as Grenfell Tower are to be made available to survivors of the fire.
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