- At least 58 people may have died in the massive fire that engulfed a 24-storey Grenfell Tower.
London police on Saturday raised to 58 the number of deaths either confirmed or presumed following the massive fire that engulfed a 24-storey residential Grenfell Tower public housing over 100 families in west London. Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy said that number “may increase” further and that the “significant” recovery operation is likely to take weeks.
“As soon as we can, we will locate and recover loved ones,” he said.
Cundy said the number of 58 is based on reports from the public. It includes 30 deaths that already have been confirmed, and reports of people who are missing and presumed to have been killed. He says it will take weeks or longer to recover and identify all the dead at the building.
“Sadly, at this time there are 58 people who we have been told were in the Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing. And therefore, sadly, I have to assume that they are dead,” he said. He said police would consider criminal prosecutions if there is evidence of wrongdoing and that the police investigation would include scrutiny of the renovation project at the tower, which experts believe may have left the building more vulnerable to a catastrophic blaze. Police have been struggling to come up with an authoritative list of who was in the building when the fire started, making it difficult to determine how many had died.
Cundy said there may have been other people in the tower who police are not aware of, and that could increase the death toll. He asked anyone who was in the tower and survived to contact police immediately. The identification of the victims is proving very difficult — which experts attribute to the extreme heat of the fire. British health authorities say that 19 fire survivors are still being treated at London hospitals, and 10 of them remain in critical condition.
Police said they are using the INTERPOL Disaster Victim Identification Standards to identify the deceased. This relies on dental records, fingerprints and DNA when possible and also features like tattoos or scars. Firefighters continue their search at the site of the fire. The blaze tore through all floors of the building and took more than 200 firefighters 24 hours to bring it under control.
