LONDON (AP) — A fast-moving overnight fire engulfed a 24-story apartment tower in London on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 74 others, police said. Desperately trying to avoid the flames, residents threw one baby and other small children from high windows to people down on the sidewalk, witnesses said.
The inferno lit up the night sky and spewed black smoke from the windows of the Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, where more than 200 firefighters battled the blaze. The smoke stretched for miles (kilometers) across the sky after dawn, revealing the blackened, flame-licked wreckage of the building, which was still burning over 12 hours later.
People trapped by the advancing flames and thick smoke banged on windows and screamed for help, witnesses and survivors said. One resident said the fire alarm did not go off — bolstering the arguments of a community group, which only months ago had warned of a potential catastrophe at the subsidized housing block.
“The flames — I have never seen anything like it, it just reminded me of 9/11,” said Muna Ali, 45. “The fire started on the upper floors … oh my goodness, it spread so quickly. It had completely spread within half an hour.”
“This is an unprecedented incident,” Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton told reporters. “In my 29 years of being a firefighter, I have never, ever seen anything of this scale.”
She said she feared more victims would be found still inside the tower, where up to 600 people lived in 120 apartments. The London Fire Brigade said it rescued 65 people.
By 5 p.m., it was still not clear how many people were able to escape the fire and how many others were still missing. Firefighters carried out systematic searches throughout the charred wreckage and officials urged tower residents to call a hotline to help them get a handle on the number of missing.