A massive fire engulfed a 24-storey residential high-rise building in London on Wednesday, leaving scores injured and a yet-to-determine number of people dead.
The
London Fire Brigade dispatched no fewer than 40 fire engines, 20
ambulance crews and 200 firefighters to put out the fire at the
Grenfell Tower in West London.
A
number of fatalities have been recorded but the dead toll is yet to be
determined, said a representative of the London Fire Brigade.
An
exact figure for the number of injured has not yet been released
either, but the London Ambulance Service said 30 people had been
transported to five local hospitals after the incident, while the London
Metropolitan Police said in a prior statement many people were being
given medical care for a range of injuries.
The
cause of the fire is still unknown and has left the building almost
totally charred, and there are fears about the structural integrity of
the building as it appears to have tilted to one side.
The
tower, built in 1974, contains 120 apartments, according to its
management company Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management
Organisation.
London
Fire Brigade assistant commissioner Dan Daly said in a statement that
"firefighters wearing breathing apparatus are working extremely hard in
very difficult conditions to tackle this fire. This is a large and very
serious incident and we have deployed numerous resources and specialist
appliances."
According to Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London described the blaze as a "major incident."
London
Metropolitan Police said they were called at 1:16 a.m. "to reports of a
large fire at a block of flats in the Lancaster West Estate, W11."
"It
looks very bad, very very bad. I've never seen anything like this. It's
just such a big fire,” Tim Downey, an eyewitness, told BBC early
Wednesday. "It has burned through to its very core."
He said part of the building appeared to be "completely burned away."
"The whole building is just crumbling. It's just billowing black smoke," Downey said.
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