LONDON (TIP): The death toll from the London fire stands at 30, and is still climbing. Some victims may never be identified, officials said. The Metropolitan Police said on Friday that at least 30 people were known to have died in the Grenfell Tower blaze, including one person who died in hospital. The bodies of 12 people have been recovered. The other deceased remain inside the building.
The BBC estimates about 76 people are missing based on social media and missing posters, which could include some of the 30 confirmed dead. London Police commander Stuart Cundy said that the conditions inside Grenfell Tower mean that the search operation to recover the victims was extremely challenging. “The sad reality is that this work will stretch into many weeks,” he said.
A total of 24 people remain in hospital, with 12 in critical care. They have all been identified and their families informed. The majority of residents in the flat were Muslims and came from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Eritrea. Somalia, Sudan, Syrian, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A Bangladeshi family of five, who lived on the 16th floor, is among those missing.
Al Manar, a mosque in North Kensington where Grenfell Tower is located, has cancelled i’tikaaf (retreat in a mosque during Ramzan) so that victims can stay there. “We have cancelled the spiritual retreat so that we can offer bedding to people,” said Tabassum Awan, who is volunteering at the mosque. “It’s chaos – we have had restaurants phoning up all the time offering to deliver hot food here. One rang up and offered to deliver 1,000 hot meals,” she said.
One Moroccan woman in the mosque, Habiba, said she was looking for a 16-year-old Moroccan school girl Nur Huda El Wahabi who is missing, who is best friends with her son Abdul.
By Thursday night the fire in the 24- storey building was totally extinguished. What was left was a light grey ash coloured shell – towering in a ghostly fashion above the nearby pubs and houses. (PTI)