The fallout from London’s devastating tower block blaze continued on Sunday with the government announcing 60 high-rises have failed safety tests, as an insurance body said they had warned officials of the fire risks.
The massive operation to test tower blocks follows the Grenfell Tower inferno earlier this month that is presumed to have killed 79 people after it spread at shocking speed.
Suspicion has fallen on the cladding installed on the outside of Grenfell and urgent checks have found such material used on 60 other residential buildings has failed fire tests.
Photo: AFP
“All landlords and fire and rescue services for these local authorities have been alerted to the results and we are in touch with all of them to support and monitor follow-up action,” local government minister Sajid Javid said.
The new figure is a significant jump from the 34 high-rise buildings in England deemed unsafe by the government on Saturday.
While many people have been able to stay in their homes despite the fire risk, thousands of residents from 650 flats in north London were evacuated on Saturday.
An inspection showed four of the five Chalcots Estate towers in Camden were at risk over cladding, fire doors, gas pipes and insulation, prompting a chaotic evacuation with temporary accommodation offered in a local leisure center and hotels.
Despite the safety fears, about 200 residents have refused to leave their homes, some of whom suffer from agoraphobia, local authority leader Georgia Gould said.
“I’m going myself back to the blocks to knock on doors and have those conversations,” she told BBC television of her efforts to convince residents to leave.
Gould refused to be drawn on whether there was a deadline to evacuate residents, saying: “The last thing I want to do is force people out of their homes.”
It is up to each local authority to decide whether to evacuate residents from blocks which have failed fire tests, a spokesman for the communities and local government department told reporters.
As tests continue to avoid a repeat of the horror which broke out at the Grenfell Tower on June 14, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said it had warned of the risks posed by cladding in feedback to a government policy document.
“In our response to the government’s housing white paper in May this year we drew attention to the fact that external cladding made from combustible material can cause fire to spread,” ABI spokesman Malcolm Tarling told reporters by e-mail.
The same government department which is now spearheading the safety checks ran a consultation between February and last month, requesting feedback on its “white paper” policy document on overhauling the housing sector.
A spokeswoman for the department for communities and local government was not immediately able to comment on the ABI’s feedback, which has not yet been published.
As the charred skeleton of the 24-story Grenfell block looms over the west of the city, London MP David Lammy said trust has hit “rock bottom” as many in the local community believe more than 79 people were killed.
“Survivors cannot believe that the death toll has not risen. Speaking to people on the ground, there is huge suspicion of a cover-up,” he said.
Police have said that the number of victims could rise still, with detective Fiona McCormack on Friday saying a full forensic search could take until the end of the year.
All “complete bodies” have been removed from the wreckage, but there remains “a terrible reality that we might not find or identify everyone who died due to the intense heat,” she said.
FLYBY: The object, appears to be traveling more than 60 kilometers per second, meaning it is not bound by the sun’s orbit, astronomers studying 3I/Atlas said Astronomers on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of an interstellar object racing through the solar system — only the third-ever spotted, although scientists suspect many more might slip past unnoticed. The visitor from the stars, designated 3I/Atlas, is likely the largest yet detected, and has been classified as a comet, or cosmic snowball. “It looks kind of fuzzy,” said Peter Veres, an astronomer with the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, which was responsible for the official confirmation. “It seems that there is some gas around it, and I think one or two telescopes reported a very short tail.” Originally known as A11pl3Z before
US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday accused Harvard University of violating the civil rights of its Jewish and Israeli students, and threatened to cut off all federal funding if the university does not take urgent action. Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump’s campaign against top US universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.” Trump and his allies claim that Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism. In a letter sent to the president of Harvard, a federal task
‘CONTINUE TO SERVE’: The 90-year-old Dalai Lama said he hoped to be able to continue serving ‘sentient beings and the Buddha Dharma’ for decades to come The Dalai Lama yesterday said he dreamed of living for decades more, as the Buddhist spiritual leader prayed with thousands of exiled Tibetans on the eve of his 90th birthday. Thumping drums and deep horns reverberated from the Indian hilltop temple, as a chanting chorus of red-robed monks and nuns offered long-life prayers for Tenzin Gyatso, who followers believe is the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Looking in good health, dressed in traditional maroon monk robes and a flowing yellow wrap, he led prayers — days after confirming that the 600-year-old Tibetan Buddhist institution would continue after his death. Many exiled Tibetans
BRICS leaders are to meet in Rio de Janeiro from today, with the bloc depleted by the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who is skipping the annual summit of emerging economies for the first time in 12 years. The grouping meets as its members face imminent and costly tariff wars with the US. Conceived two decades ago as a forum for fast-growing economies, the BRICS have come to be dominated by Beijing, which grew much faster and larger than the rest. China has not said why Xi would miss the summit, a first since he became president in 2013. “I expect there
RSS