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Theresa May Is Heckled as London Fire’s Death Toll Rises to 30 U.K. Premier and London Mayor Are Met With Anger as They Respond to Fire
(about 2 hours later)
LONDON — Anger about the government’s handling of Britain’s worst building fire in decades surged on Friday, as Londoners heckled Prime Minister Theresa May and stormed the headquarters of a local council to protest what they saw as a slow and inadequate response. LONDON — Grenfell Tower residents said they had warned about fire hazards for years before their London public housing project became a 24-story cinder. On Friday, their grief spilled into anger as they accused officials first of ignoring them and then of holding back on assistance and information about their missing loved ones.
Mrs. May, whose Conservative Party lost its majority in Parliament last week, is facing one of the biggest crises of her tenure, as Britons have raised questions about safety procedures and construction safety after a fire that incinerated a 24-story apartment tower in West London. With scores of residents still unaccounted for since the early Wednesday fire, frustrated survivors stormed the local government council, demanding help and a roster — or at least the number — of tower residents.
The official death toll rose to 30 on Friday, but authorities said it could easily reach 70. They also made a grim admission: A full accounting might be impossible because some victims may never be identified. Prime Minister Theresa May and Mayor Sadiq Khan were heckled on separate visits with survivors. The queen and Prince William, upon leaving a relief center for the victims, were subjected to calls of “What about the children?”
Queen Elizabeth II and her grandson Prince William visited a sports center on Friday that had been turned into a place of grieving and support for victims of the fire and their families. The authorities confirmed on Friday that at least 30 people had died and estimated that the final toll could be more than 70 killed in an inferno so intense that the remains of many of the victims will be unidentifiable. And already, the fire at the Grenfell Tower housing project — its scorched shell looming above one of London’s most upscale neighborhoods — has become a grim symbol of class inequality in a city that has long been a magnet for global wealth.
Mrs. May, who had been criticized for meeting with rescue workers but not with victims, returned to the area where the fire took place, and announced a £5 million ($6.4 million) fund to pay for emergency supplies, food, clothes and other costs. As news reports increasingly suggested that corner-cutting by government officials and building contractors alike may have played a role in the deadly fire, resentment played out in public.
The fire left the building, Grenfell Tower, a charred ruin, and has left hundreds of people homeless. Mrs. May, who also visited survivors of the fire at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, said in a statement that she was horrified by their plight — her most emotional statement on the fire to date. Mrs. May, already weakened by her failure to win a majority in this month’s elections, has called for a public inquiry into the causes of the fire. But her public reaction has been criticized as halting and unempathetic, especially for her initial failure to even meet with victims’ families.
“I spoke with people who ran from the fire in only the clothes they were wearing,” Mrs. May said. “They have been left with nothing — no bank cards, no money, no means of caring for their children or relatives. One woman told me she had escaped in only her top and underwear.” The criticisms echoed those made of her election campaign, during which she was accused of preferring speeches in carefully controlled environments. On Friday, finally, she perilously ventured outside that comfort zone, meeting with survivors and promising a fund of about $6.5 million to pay for emergency supplies, food, clothes and other costs.
A former home secretary, responsible for policing and domestic security, Mrs. May added: “Everyone affected by this tragedy needs reassurance that the government is there for them at this terrible time — and that is what I am determined to provide,” she said outside St. Clement’s Church, near the tower.
“Everyone affected by this tragedy needs reassurance that the government is there for them at this terrible time — and that is what I am determined to provide.” Angry residents heckled her with shouts of “Coward!”
Not everyone was mollified by the announcement. Outside St. Clement’s Church, where Mrs. May made her announcement, angry residents shouted “Coward!” and heckled Mrs. May. More than one commentator saw the fire as Mrs. May’s Hurricane Katrina moment, not merely for the self-inflicted political damage, but for the evident distance between a cosseted political class and the victims, who were overwhelmingly immigrants and poor.
Nearby, dozens of angry residents entered the Town Hall of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which owns Grenfell Tower, to request a meeting with officials and to present a list of demands. The demonstration was not violent, but it was loud and tense, with many protesters shouting “Not 17,” a reference to an earlier death toll that everyone agrees is far too low. “Looks bad, shades of Bush after Katrina,” Jane Merrick, a former political editor and columnist at The Independent on Sunday, wrote on Twitter.
The demands included the relocation of dislocated residents within the borough, which is one of the most affluent in London but also contains extensive areas of housing for people of modest means; the immediate release of financial aid for victims and their families who have lost their belongings; and a complete roster — or at least the number — of the residents in the tower. Leila Amani, a survivor who visited Al Manaar mosque for prayers on Friday, said she had been placed in a hotel in Earl’s Court with her family, but had not been given any information about how long she would stay there.
In response, the council said that it would do its best to relocate displaced residents, possibly in other parts of London; that it had already released funds, and appealed to the public to identify anyone not getting prompt help; and that it was up to the coroner to release names and numbers of victims. The demonstrators said they were not satisfied. “One of the charity workers told me it would be four or five days, but I haven’t been told anything directly, and we have no idea where we will go after that,” she said.
“I’m here to get some answers,” said one protester, Kais Khaldoun, 22, a telecommunications student, who lives in the Ladbroke Grove section of London. “Kensington is one of the richest areas, how did they allow this negligence — how did they allow this tragedy to happen when it could have easily been avoided?” “We’ve lost everything, and this is the richest borough in Chelsea,” she added. “How is it the mosques and churches are taking care of us and not the authorities?”
Ayyub Kenouche, 20, a biomedical sciences student, also from Ladbroke Grove, said that officials should accept responsibility for a “stay put” policy, which urged residents to stay indoors in the event of a fire. Even those who had rushed to volunteer and help were exasperated.
At an afternoon news conference, Stuart Cundy, a Metropolitan Police commander, said that the flames had at last been extinguished, but that the charred, ruined Grenfell Tower remained in a hazardous state and that it would be a long, painstaking task to sweep the building for remains. “It’s been so chaotic,” said Miriam Busani, a West London resident and volunteer.
As of Friday morning, 24 patients remained in four hospitals, 12 in critical condition. Dozens of people remain unaccounted for. “I think it’s appalling that these people have to organize their own relief,” she said, “and I left yesterday feeling that there could be a civil disturbance as these people are desperate and have been systematically dehumanized.”
The police said they were using dental records, fingerprints and DNA samples to identify victims, along with telltale features such as tattoos, scars, jewelry or distinctive clothing. But Commander Cundy said the intensity of the fire made the task of identifying victims slow and arduous at best: Some bodies were likely to be burned beyond recognition, if not reduced to ash. “It’s a riot waiting to happen,” she added.
Many traumatized relatives have turned to social media for help finding missing loved ones. Others have pasted desperate pleas and photographs on walls around the area. Later on Friday, dozens of angry residents barged into the headquarters of the local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, to demand a meeting with officials.
Noha Baghdady, whose brother is missing, wrote on Facebook: “Another night without any confirmed information. We are emotionally exhausted, drained & our heart is broken. I’m not going to give up hope, please continue to share my brothers details... Hesham Rahman Age, 57 DOB: 30 January 1960 20th Floor Grenfell Tower Flat 204.” The crowd shouted “Not 17!” a reference to the initial death toll put out by the authorities. Their demands included that the tower’s residents be relocated within the borough and given immediate financial aid.
Other notices show smiling women in hijabs, a black man with dreadlocks, young children and happy families, befitting a predominantly working-class building whose multicultural makeup reflected its city and neighborhood. The council said that it would do its best to relocate displaced residents, but gave no guarantee, and said it had already released funds. It was up to the coroner to release names and numbers of victims, it said.
As the demand for answers grew, Mrs. May announced an inquiry into the tragedy, and the police said they were opening a criminal investigation, evidently to determine if negligence had led to the lethal blaze. Laura Murray, 25, a beautician whose family lived in Grenfell Tower, said she was shocked by the fire and the official response, but not at all surprised.
Among the questions being asked are whether the owner of the building took any shortcuts in its use of construction materials, including the installation of external cladding, part of a renovation completed last year, that may have accelerated the fire’s spread: It took only 15 minutes to take hold across the tower block. “There have been so many fire hazard complaints in the past, with power outages in cramped apartments full of children,” Ms. Murray said. “But the council doesn’t consider the working class and immigrants in the same way it does the rich, which is unacceptable in one of the world’s richest countries.”
The building is owned by the local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization, a company that runs nearly 10,000 properties, including several large tower blocks and parking lots, on behalf of the borough. In London, public housing is relatively distributed, something that has long been seen as a positive force for social cohesion.
Rydon, the lead contractor on the renovation, has said that it complied with all the necessary fire and safety regulations. Yet in recent years, the city has also become home to a jaw-dropping concentration of global wealth, which Grenfell Tower residents could see all around them but could scarcely touch. The overcrowded towers that accommodate some of the poorest families in the country are adjacent to streets lined with townhouses worth tens of millions.
Ray Bailey, the managing director of Harley Facades, the subcontractor that installed the cladding, has said it was fully cooperating with investigations into the fire, and would not speculate on the causes. The glaring juxtaposition only sharpened the sense among Grenfell Tower residents that their well-being and safety were ignored because of who they were.
The aluminum cladding is available in several varieties. These include one with a fire-retardant mineral core and another, cheaper version with a core of less fire-resistant material. The speed with which the fire swept through Grenfell Tower has raised questions about whether the latter may have been used. “People are not getting their heads around the paradigm in which we exist here, which is one of absolute inequality,” Toby Lavrent Belson, a local activist, said. “Our warnings were ignored, because that is normal here.”
Brian J. Meacham, associate professor of fire protection engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, said that in the United States, any type of combustible material used in buildings taller than 40 feet generally needed to fire-tested before it could be used on building exteriors, including metal cladding panels. In contrast, he said, building codes in Britain put a lot of the onus on engineers to comply with nonmandatory guidelines on sprinkler systems, alarms and fire exits. Many of the immigrants who lived at Grenfell Tower came from war-ravaged countries like Syria, Somalia and Sudan. Mohammed Alhajali, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee, was one of them.
Politicians from all sides are also demanding to know why recommendations made by an inquiry after a deadly fire at a Southeast London apartment building in 2009 — including a call to install sprinklers in tower blocks — have gone unheeded. Grenfell Tower was completed in 1974, and there is no legal requirement to retrofit older high rises with sprinklers. A family friend, Umar Maan, said Mr. Alhajali had narrowly escaped the “slaughter and bloodshed” of Syria and risked his life making the dangerous crossing to Europe by sea before being granted asylum in Britain in 2014.
Grenfell Tower had no central alarm system or sprinkler system, and only a single internal staircase led outside, provoking questions about whether enough safety measures were in place. On Thursday, Mr. Alhajali was the first victim of the fire to be identified, in part because of pictures and a video of his body that had been posted to Facebook on Wednesday.
The fire is also prompting an examination of Grenfell Tower’s so-called stay put policy, which called for residents to remain in their apartments if a fire broke out elsewhere in the building. The policy, which firefighters say reflected standard practice in high rises across Britain, may nevertheless have hindered some residents from escaping. On Friday, the man who posted those images, Omega Mwaikambo, 43, was found guilty of “malicious communications offenses.” But a friend of Mr. Alhajali’s, Abdulazz Almashi, said that it was only because another friend had shared the images with him that he was able to identify the victim to the police as Mr. Alhajali.
Darren Baird, owner of Total Fire Services, a fire safety consultancy in Manchester, England, said the “stay put” policy was decades old, and the basis was that individual apartments were built to withstand a fire for at least 60 minutes. But if a building was altered or refurbished, he said — as Grenfell Tower had been — then the policy needed reviewing to check whether it still applied. Grenfell Tower is managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization, on behalf of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
The fire has presented a political challenge for Mrs. May, who was already struggling after her Conservative Party failed to gain a majority in parliamentary elections last week. Britain has seen three deadly terrorist attacks since March, all claimed by the Islamic State. Known by its initials, K.C.T.M.O., the group was formed in 1996 and manages nearly 10,000 properties, including several large tower blocks, underground parking lots and river vistas, on behalf of the borough, according to its website.
Mrs. May, who served for six years as home secretary, the cabinet minister responsible for policing and domestic security, has pledged to find answers for the fire’s victims. But critics have accused her of failing to show enough empathy. Among the properties under its management is Adair Tower, a 14-story tower block that was set aflame in October 2015 in an arson attack.
On Thursday, Mrs. May ordered a full public inquiry and met with fire and police officials, which her aides said reflected her resolute desire to get to the bottom of what happened. Grenfell Tower underwent a $10.9 million refurbishment in 2016, and questions are being raised about the type of cladding that was used on the outside of the building during the renovation.
But Michael Portillo, a former cabinet minister from Mrs. May’s Conservative Party, said the prime minister had failed to “use her humanity” when she visited the scene of the fire. Harriet Harman, a former deputy leader of the Labour Party who represents a South London district in Parliament, urged Mrs. May to make amends by inviting survivors of the fire to 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s office and residence. Several Grenfell Tower residents accused the K.C.T.M.O. of purposely neglecting their needs so that the building would eventually decay and have to be demolished, and of cutting corners in the refurbishment.
The K.C.T.M.O. did not reply to a request for comment.
“There are plans to build shiny new fireproof buildings for rich people in this area, and our outdated towers get in the way of those plans,” said Alice Thomas, 37, who lived on the 12th floor and narrowly escaped.
“No one really knows what was done during the regeneration project, but it’s obvious now that they just used cheap materials and painted over them so that everything appeared nice and shiny on the surface,” Ms. Thomas added.
“Trust me, no one was fooled,” she continued. “Our neighbors called this. They knew it would happen and they tried to stop it, but no one listened because no one would profit from listening.”
A 2016 blog post published by an association of residents, the Grenfell Action Group, and titled “Playing With Fire” virtually prophesied such an event.
“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 K.C.T.M.O., and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation,” the post read.
The group also accused the management company of failing to provide proper fire safety instructions for its tenants apart from a temporary notice stuck to the elevator, telling residents to stay in their apartments in the event of a fire.
Even after the building underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation last year, many of the health and safety concerns that had been voiced by residents in the past had not been addressed.
“What did they do with that money? Buy some cheap shoddy inflammable materials and just pocket the rest?” said Isobel Kirk, a Grenfell Tower resident, who was returning from work early Thursday when the fire broke out.
She had to wait for over two hours watching the building burn down while her family was still inside. They were taken to a hospital and survived, but it was hours before she knew.
“You would think they’d at least build a second fire escape,” she said. “One badly lit fire escape and one exit for hundreds of people. It’s a death trap.”