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London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been confronted by angry residents at the site of the gutted Grenfell Tower.
Key points:
- British PM Theresa May has ordered a full public inquiry into the blaze as people demand answers
- London Mayor Sadiq Khan was pressed by angry locals near the site of the fire
- A criminal investigation has also been launched
Entire families are missing after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building in west London in the early hours of Wednesday, killing at least 17 people.
Mr Khan was confronted by a crowd of people outside the nearby Notting Hill Methodist Church, many of whom said they had been "let down".
Residents feel ignored
An element of the residents anger is coming from their belief that they are not being heard. The area affected is a very, very wealthy area of London — it's in the Kensington and Chelsea Borough — but these residents believe that the pocket where the Grenfell Tower lies is made up of working class people.
They believe that they weren't listened to because they're a poorer subclass of the community. If it was a richer community, they say the local council and authorities would have done something about it.
There's also anger that authorities have not been turning up in the area and answering questions — there's a lot of people out on the street very angry and they want answers.
Sadiq Khan who oversees all of the top of the councils turned up today for a press conference and he's on the residents' side.
He said that once Theresa May announced an inquiry he wanted an interim report published within months and the reasons being that we should learn the lessons of the fire soon and not wait for years and kick it into the long grass.
But even he, when he turned up, was heckled because he was the first authority figure that they saw in the neighbourhood.
— Analysis by Europe correspondent Steve Cannane
"There's too much emphasis on Brexit mate! Look after the country," one man shouted.
"Look after the people!" another woman said.
"How many children died? What are you going to do about it?" seven-year-old Kai Ramos said.
As the child pressed, the Labour politician pledged to get answers.
"I grew up in a similar council estate in South London and this could have easily been my family, my friends, and my community," he said.
"I share their anger and concern."
Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered a full public inquiry into the blaze.
"Right now, people want answers and it's absolutely right and that's why I am today ordering a full public inquiry into this disaster," Ms May said.
"We need to know what happened, we need to have an explanation of this.
"People deserve answers, the inquiry will give them."
London Police also said a criminal investigation had been launched.
'Miracle' if more survivors found
London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said it would be a "miracle" if any survivors were found.
"There is still a number of people who are receiving treatment in hospital. There are 37 people receiving treatment, of which 17 are still in critical care," London Police Commander Stuart Cundy said.
"Our absolute priority for all of us is identifying and locating those people who are still missing."
He declined to comment on likely final death toll: "It would be wrong for me to get into numbers that I do not believe are accurate."
The first victim to be identified from the blaze was Mohammed Alhaj Ali, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee studying in London and hoping to return to help his war-torn country.
The Lebanese Embassy has listed Bassem Choukeir, his wife Nadia, her mother Sariyya and the couple's three daughters Mirna, Fatmeh and Zaynab as missing. The family apparently lived on the 22nd floor of the tower.
The tower is in the North Kensington neighbourhood — a working-class, multi-ethnic area next to some of the richest neighbourhoods in Britain.
The mainly poor residents of the huge Grenfell public housing complex, which had 120 apartments that housed as many as 600 people, said a tenant group's warnings about possible fire risks had been ignored for years.
Last year, the building underwent a $14.6 million exterior refurbishment that included new external cladding and windows.
The tower is owned by the local Government in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Fire safety engineers were stunned at how rapidly the fire spread, engulfing the building in less than an hour in the middle of the night and preventing firefighters from reaching many people inside.
Some jumped to their deaths rather than face the flames, and witnesses reported seeing small children thrown from the tower by their families in a desperate bid to survive.
Firefighters trying to race into the building were protected from the falling debris by police officers who placed riot shields over their heads.
ABC/wires
Topics: disasters-and-accidents, fires, united-kingdom
First posted