Huge Fire In Block Of Flats

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Trevatanus

11,123 posts

150 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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This is awful.
How long till they roll out the FBU to slag off the government about the cuts.
God knows how many fatalities

Cold

15,247 posts

90 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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"Significant number" unaccounted for.

Willy Nilly

12,511 posts

167 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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I'm not one for emotional outbursts about news stories, but this is awful.

jonnyb

2,590 posts

252 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Absolutely awful, terrible news to wake up to. Fingers crossed for everyone involved.

hornetrider

63,161 posts

205 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Just seen the guy on BBC news interviewed in his dressing gown. Harrowing account of how quickly it went up and fire alarms in the hallways only, not in the flats. And the fire advice is to stay in the flat!

Just awful.

King Herald

23,501 posts

216 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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On the BBC now lots of people jumping, throwing kids out of the windows.... frown

Damn.......frown


How can anything like this happen in a country literally crippled by health and safety?? How old is the building?

gooner1

10,223 posts

179 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Just hope fatalities and injuries are as low as one could wish for.

TTmonkey

20,911 posts

247 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Wow. There's got to be between 200 and 300 individual residences in there.

Makes you shudder to think how many victims there could be.

Blue One

463 posts

179 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Not wishing in any way to diminish the horrible situation here, but what really pi**es me off is the voyeuristic hysteria whipped up by the constant news coverage of this event (and others like it when they happen). I turned on BBC One at 0500 today to get the news and tee-up for the day and for the 40 mins I kept the TV on all we had was live streaming coverage of the blaze, including some highly questionable interviewing of people with relative/friends missing, to the exclusion of all else. Surely in the interest of balance and good taste they can keep us informed every 30/15 mins about what's happening, but to abandon everything else and just have this on seems way OTT and bad TV.

Hoping all involved are safe and okay

(BTW, I can see sniping at Boris/Tories at some point about cutbacks in London Fire Service as part of the larger story here at some point)

ralphrj

3,525 posts

191 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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TTmonkey said:
Wow. There's got to be between 200 and 300 individual residences in there.

Makes you shudder to think how many victims there could be.
120 individual residences apparently

Hub

6,434 posts

198 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Sounds grim. frown

The fire brigade can't get high enough with hoses and cannons - so how do they put out something like this? Did the tower not have a sprinkler system?

ALawson

7,815 posts

251 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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King Herald said:
How can anything like this happen in a country literally crippled by health and safety?? How old is the building?
Just look at Edingbugh schools, combination of poor design and even worse Quality Assurance. 1 issue with a masonry facade has led to 10's of schools being condemened (or there facade) where the same design/company/detail was used and not supervised or checked of properly.

Its rife everywhere in construction, rework and non conformances.

Twitter is already away with discussions and finger pointing about cuts to the fire service, not sure you could have got more than 45 fire engines and 200 fire fighters around that building anyway.

Twitter is also reporting 85% occupancy as Muslim with a few people hoping "its only and accident".

I fear that there will be significant number of fatalities, shocking really.

Hosenbugler

1,854 posts

102 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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King Herald said:
How can anything like this happen in a country literally crippled by health and safety?? How old is the building?
I heard a snippet earlier and am pretty sure they said 1974, definitely early 70's. Has had refurbs in recent years.

From the images taken at 03.00 its seems almost certain that anyone still in the building above the first few floors is dead. Not good, it would not surprise me if the casualty toll is in 3 figures. Horrendous.

As an aside , I cannot recall the last time anything happend like this in the uk, not a fire, at anyrate. Ronan point and the Putney flats were both gas explosions IIRC


Edited by Hosenbugler on Wednesday 14th June 07:39

PoleDriver

28,637 posts

194 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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King Herald said:
How can anything like this happen in a country literally crippled by health and safety?? How old is the building?
Because many people and organisations only pay lip service to the rules and regs!

cjs racing.

2,467 posts

129 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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I really hope everyone made it out, and the injuries are only minor. (unlikely I know, sadly)

Thinking ahead, is that rebuildable, if not how quickly can it be taken down, and how do you ensure it's safe in the meantime.

TheInternet

4,717 posts

163 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
Shell suits for buildings?

p1stonhead

25,545 posts

167 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Heads will roll for this tragedy if stuff like this was still going on;

Written in November 2016;
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/11/...

It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.

It is our conviction that a serious fire in a tower block or similar high density residential property is the most likely reason that those who wield power at the KCTMO will be found out and brought to justice!

The Grenfell Action Group predict that it won’t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the heath and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can’t say that they haven’t been warned!

Goes back a while too....

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/01/...

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/...

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/...



Edited by p1stonhead on Wednesday 14th June 07:46

King Herald

23,501 posts

216 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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p1stonhead said:
Heads will roll for this tragedy if stuff like this was still going on;

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/01/...

Edited by p1stonhead on Wednesday 14th June 07:42
That's 18 months old, but I doubt they cleaned up their act that quickly.

Reports of the refurb are being mentioned by witnesses who were in there.

Looks to me like the exterior cladding was blazing all over and that is what spread the fire so quickly. The only unburnt part is on the windward side, so flames will have blown away from that corner.

I foresee a hell of a lot of building renovations in the next year, if that is the case.

In the Philippines I saw them insulating the outside of new buildings with some new tech cladding, that looked and felt exactly like polystyrene to me.......



Puggit

48,439 posts

248 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Fatalities confirmed

turbobloke

103,953 posts

260 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
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Puggit said:
Fatalities confirmed
With one resident claiming that when they managed to get outside they saw one entire side of the building on fire, adding that the recently refurbed cladding 'went up like a match' as KH noted already, but naturally those making fire service statements are refusing to speculate on the cause or progress of the fire at this stage.

A dreadful situation to face for occupants, and emergency services too.
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