Updated April 26, 2018 12:01:25

Photo: The fire was the country's deadliest since World War II. (Reuters: Toby Melville)

Two Australians were among the 71 victims who died in the Grenfell Tower fire in London in June last year, the Foreign Affairs Department has confirmed.

Alexandra Atala, 40, and her mother, Victoria King, 71, have been named in media reports as the two Australians found dead in their 20th-floor flat after the blaze engulfed a 24-storey social housing block in west London, in the country's deadliest fire since World War II.

Londoners who watched the inferno tear through a high-rise tower block in West London describe seeing people trapped in the building screaming for help as burning debris rained down.

"The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) can confirm that two Australian citizens died in the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017," the Department said in a statement.

The two women were "devoted to each other", according to a family statement issued soon after the fire and reported across media outlets.

"We were devastated to hear of our sister Vicky's fate, and that of her daughter, Alexandra, in the Grenfell Tower tragedy," they said.

"Some comfort can come from the knowledge that she and Alexandra were devoted to one another and spent so many mutually supportive years together."

The June 14 blaze broke out just before 1:00am and spread through the entire building from the second floor upwards.

Flames shot from windows all the way up the side of the structure, which housed 120 homes, as firefighters battled the blaze, and a plume of smoke could be seen for several kilometres.

More than 200 firefighters and 40 fire engines were sent to the scene as scores of terrified residents remained trapped inside. The speed with which the blaze spread shocked fire experts.

In the following days, fire authorities continued to search for victims as anger was rife, with British Prime Minister Theresa May confronted by protesters and a crowd of angry locals storming the local town hall.

Engineering experts at the time said outside insulation panels installed on the 24-storey building may have helped the fire spread rapidly from one floor to the next.

In the wake of the blaze British authorities announced an independent review into building regulations after new tests identified 82 apartment towers with cladding that failed to meet fire safety tests.

In late June, the company that supplied the cladding used in Grenfell Tower announced it would stop global sales of plastic-filled aluminium panels citing "inconsistencies in building codes around the world".

ABC/wires

Topics: death, fires, residential, united-kingdom

First posted April 26, 2018 11:05:32