LONDON – Five years ago, a fire in a tower block in West London killed 72 people, devastated a community, destabilized a country and exposed harsh inequality in one of its neighbourhoods. richest man in London. It also posed a broad reckoning in UK fire and building safety regulations.
Before 1 a.m. on June 14, 2017, a resident on the 4th floor woke up a neighbor to report that his refrigerator had exploded. The fire in the kitchen quickly spread to the flammable cladding that covered the 24-story building’s exterior and climbed onto the side of the structure.
At 12:54 am, the London Fire Brigade received the first call. Firefighters arrived at the scene minutes later and entered the building.
The flames were moving rapidly along the building’s flammable coating, enveloping the tower in flames. For about two hours after the fire was reported, firefighters advised residents to stay in their apartments. Some people still got out by stairs, and more than 200 people survived, out of about 300 who were in the building at the time.
The fire was not brought under control until more than 24 hours after it started.
Causes
The basic cause of the fire was combustible external materialThis accelerated the spread of the deadly flame.
Grenfell Tower was built in the 1970s, and its concrete structure, originally built without partitions, was designed to contain a fire in an apartment long enough to allow firefighters to intervene. . A year before the fire, Grenfell Tower had undergone a renovation and its facade was covered with panels.
Residents say the façade was installed to make their residential project more aesthetically pleasing as it is close to upscale neighborhoods in London’s Kensington and Chelsea boroughs.
The panels are made of aluminum composite panels with a layer of polyethylene sandwiched between them. During a fire, polyethylene, a type of plastic, melts and catches fire, with droplets of fire falling onto the sides of the building. The insulation between slabs and concrete structures is also flammable, and the air gap between them causes heat and flames to rise.
Coatings, which are already used in a number of other buildings across the UK, are not allowed on tall buildings in many countries, including the United States, because of the fire hazard. But decades of deregulation in the UK have resulted in lax building rules allowing some developers to prioritize cost-cutting over safety.
Residents have complained for years that the building is unsafe, lacking sprinklers, fire alarms and emergency exits. It also only has one staircase.
The usual advice given by firefighters is to stay inside, based on the assumption that the fire can be subdivided, nor does it take into account the fact that cladding would lead to a fire that quickly engulfs the entire building. home. And, according to a report from a government-commissioned investigation, the London Fire Brigade “failed to withdraw its advice to ‘stay put’ at a time when stairs were still passable. ”
Investigations
The government-mandated investigation is divided into two phases. The results of the first investigation, which focused on what happened on the night of the fire, were released in 2019. The report is nearly 900 pages long. harshly criticized the London Fire Brigade, especially for not urging residents to leave. The report acknowledges but does not focus on the materials used for the building’s coating.
The second phase of the public investigation, which is expected to address how and why the cladding was applied during the renovation, is continuing and is expected to conclude later this year. Lawsuits have been filed against local governments and manufacturers, including Arconic, American company producing panelsand Celotex, a British company that manufactures insulation.
London’s Metropolitan Police Service is also conducting a criminal investigation into charges including business manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, fraud and health and safety offenses. Police said the release of any final public investigative report would follow a Phase 2 report.
Then, if police officials conclude there is enough evidence to consider a criminal offence, they will file a case with the Crown Prosecution Service, which is responsible for prosecuting criminal cases brought by police. investigation and other investigative bodies in England and Wales.
On Monday, Stuart Cundy, deputy assistant commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, said in a statement that the agency has more than 180 investigators dedicated to the Grenfell fire investigation and that they are working with international experts. In a statement, he said they spent a year doing a forensic examination of the tower, that they took more than 9,000 witness statements and worked through more than 130 million documents from companies and organizations office related to the tower.
For bereaved bereaved, the delay in accountability is an enduring pain.
“For us, it was one of many open wounds,” said Giannino Gottardi, son of Marco Gottardi who died in the fire.
What has changed?
The Grenfell Tower fire has drawn attention to widespread fire safety issues in buildings across the UK, with thousands of apartments at risk in what has been called “a scandal”. cover”.
After the fire, in 2017, nearly 4,000 residents was evacuated from dangerous high-rise buildings in London, and the government ordered an investigation into cladding and insulation on high-rise towers.
The British government has since banned Grenfell-style cladding on high-rise buildings, which has eliminate from many of the hundreds of other tall buildings where it was identified. This month, the government announced a complete ban on the use of such cladding on all new buildings and buildings under repair, regardless of height or intended use.
The UK government has also allocated billions of dollars to fund the removal of unsafe coatings in the UK, but critics say the money is largely inadequate and many people own apartments in buildings. Insecure homes find they incur heavy costs to fix them and struggle to maintain. responsible developers.
In January, the British government announced the plan Overhaul the government’s approach to building safety across the UK, and has taken steps to ensure that the costs of fixing fire safety issues are borne by developers.
Victims
One of Grenfell Tower’s oldest victims is in his 80s, the youngest just a few months old.
Among others who died in the fire were two young Italian architects who had moved to London to pursue their careers. Another resident, Rania Ibrahim, took a video and posted it online as she tiredly escaped the fire. “It’s over. It’s here,” she said. “Pray for us.” Her two daughters, aged 3 and 5, also died. The others were great-grandfathers, a 6-year-old boy who dreamed of becoming a father. turned firefighter and a 24-year-old artist of Gambian heritage whose work has been featured in the memorial space of the Tate Britain art gallery.
