Author Topic: Breaking News: 'LIKE HELL ON EARTH' Grenfell Tower fire: Huge blaze rips through 24-storey residential tower in London’s Ladbroke Grove with residents trapped inside ‘screaming for help’  (Read 7813 times)

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Offline dfwgator

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The usual reasons - it was built cheap to house the unemployed (Council housing, we call it) and the old. Plenty of kickbacks to the local council because who cared if it burned? Not like anyone important was going to get hurt, right?

The public housing built between the end of the 50s and the end of the 70s is a disgrace. Most areas have been relocating people and tearing them down to replace them with blocks that don't actively try to kill you.



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Offline EC

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Offline Drago

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Offline DB

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More on "exploding fridges"...the UK is using butane as a refrigerant in refrigerators...it's "green/enviro friendly" dontcha know!

From 2009:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210334/Alert-new-wave-exploding-fridges-caused-environmentally-friendly-coolant.html

I love this line from the article "Previously CFCs and HFCs were used in fridges but these gases damaged the ozone layer and contributed significantly to global warming".

Significantly? Right... This is a religious movement where no actual facts are required.

Offline EC

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Wife's watching it on Italian telly. According to them, there was a fire suppression system in the block - it didn't work thanks to lack of maintenance. I'll keep an eye out for more on that from the euro news, because that isn't going to make the UK papers.

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Offline DB

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Wife's watching it on Italian telly. According to them, there was a fire suppression system in the block - it didn't work thanks to lack of maintenance. I'll keep an eye out for more on that from the euro news, because that isn't going to make the UK papers.

Why wouldn't it make the UK papers?

Offline Smokin Joe

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Probably a steel reinforced concrete structure. The concrete protects the steel pretty well.
Must be. I would expect a steel frame structure to buckle under its own weight from the apparent intensity of that.
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Offline EC

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Why wouldn't it make the UK papers?

It's a council block, so all maintenance is done by Kensington and Chelsea council. Kensington and Chelsea is an incredibly wealthy borough who have past form at skimping maintenance until housing collapses to get rid of the poor residents.
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Offline Smokin Joe

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How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline Smokin Joe

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Probably a steel reinforced concrete structure. The concrete protects the steel pretty well.
I caught a video where one of the residents said the building was concrete, so that appears to be right.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DB

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It's a council block, so all maintenance is done by Kensington and Chelsea council. Kensington and Chelsea is an incredibly wealthy borough who have past form at skimping maintenance until housing collapses to get rid of the poor residents.

I'm sorry. I don't follow. Are you saying the papers won't report on government run housing for the poor when the government fails to maintain the property? I would think that would be a raging headline.

Offline DB

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Must be. I would expect a steel frame structure to buckle under its own weight from the apparent intensity of that.

Ya, I doubt a steel structure would have survived that. It is pretty shocking how easily the fire moved though the building, particularly floor to floor.

Offline EC

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Extraordinary stories are emerging of individuals who helped save those trapped in the tower - including one member of the public who caught a baby thrown from the ninth or 10th floor.

Witness Samira Lamrani told the Press Association: "People were starting to appear at the windows, frantically banging and screaming.

"The windows were slightly ajar, a woman was gesturing that she was about to throw her baby and if somebody could catch her baby.

"Somebody did, a gentleman ran forward and managed to grab the baby."

She added: "I could see people from all angles, banging and screaming for help.

Reports (from Italy) that it was the plastic based cladding on the outside of the building that spread the fire - it was added last year as part of a £10 million refurbishment (To make it look decent for the neighbors in the big money homes, not to fix the actual problems).
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Offline DB

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Reports (from Italy) that it was the plastic based cladding on the outside of the building that spread the fire - it was added last year as part of a £10 million refurbishment (To make it look decent for the neighbors in the big money homes, not to fix the actual problems).

So that's why there was so much fire on the outside surface of the building. I would have thought the UK would have been pretty strict on doing that sort of thing for the obvious reasons.

Offline EC

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So that's why there was so much fire on the outside surface of the building. I would have thought the UK would have been pretty strict on doing that sort of thing for the obvious reasons.

We do have very strict fire control laws, so I don't understand how they got away with using it.  :shrug:
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Offline Weird Tolkienish Figure

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I never had a reason to use this emoji until now...

 :dropjaw:

Holy crap. I have never seen a tall building go up in flames like that. There was a building fire in Dubai a few years back on New Year's Eve. But it wasn't engulfed in flames like that.

When you're young and stupid you wonder why they make a big deal about fire safety in huge buildings as they are concrete and steel....

Offline Gefn

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« Last Edit: June 14, 2017, 10:31:25 am by Freya »
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Offline mountaineer

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Just saw a CNN clip where they're interviewing residents who made it out - seem to be a lot of immigrants, Muslims (women with covered heads, anyway), etc.
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Offline DB

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From reports I just read, while people were sleeping no fire alarms were sounded in the building and the fire sprinklers didn't work. If true, the body count is going to be horrific on the upper floors because as I understand it the fire started in the lower section and therefore likely blocked the downward escape route by the time the people above became aware of the fire.

This fire is going to change UK law substantially.

Silver Pines

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Reports (from Italy) that it was the plastic based cladding on the outside of the building that spread the fire - it was added last year as part of a £10 million refurbishment (To make it look decent for the neighbors in the big money homes, not to fix the actual problems).

Dear God...I'm just seeing this on the news.  They're saying there were repeated safety issues with the building which were apparently ignored.

Offline mountaineer

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Company that carried out cladding work reportedly went into administration
Posted at 7:22

According to the industry publication Construction Enquirer, the company that carried out the cladding work on Grenfell Tower went into administration shortly after completing the work.

Harley Curtain Wall carried out the £3m project in 2015.
----------------------------
'The burning smell of plastic'
Posted at 7:19

Tasha, who has lived in the area all her life, has been telling BBC News the impact the fire has had on her.

"The smell, the smell, the fumes, I have the worst headache I've ever had. It's just the plastic burning isn't it, it's the plastic. It's not a good feeling and it's not a good environment to be in.

"And so people are angry and people want answers, and there were many warnings, people raised their concerns and nothing was done about it."
-----------------------
7:10  Construction firm statement in full

Here's the full statement from Construction firm Rydon, which completed a refurbishment of Grenfell Tower in 2016.

    We are shocked to hear of the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower and our immediate thoughts are with those that have been immediately affected by the incident, their families relatives and friends.

    Rydon completed a refurbishment of the building in the summer of 2016 for KCTMO (Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation) on behalf of the council, which met all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards.

    We will cooperate with the relevant authorities and emergency services and fully support their inquiries into the causes of this fire at the appropriate time.

More at BBC
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Offline mountaineer

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Quote
... How safe was the tower block?  The residents of Grenfell Tower had raised fire safety concerns four years prior to the tower block fire.

In February 2013 Grenfell Action Group warned fire safety equipment had not been tested for 12 months.

The residents group published an extract from a 2012 fire risk assessment which found that fire extinguishers in the basement boiler room, lift motor room and ground floor electrical room were more than 12 months out of test date. Others located in roof level areas had "condemned" written on them in large black writing and had not been tested since 2009.

The tower block was given a medium fire risk rating - defined as a a normal fire risk - in 2016 following completion of the refurbishment by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) and Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council.

But residents warned the tower block remained a fire risk. In a further blog posting in November 2016, the action group stated it believed "only a catastrophic event" would bring an end to the dangerous living conditions at the tower block.

The group association further alleged residents were given scant information about what to do in the event of a fire.

They claimed "a temporary notice stuck in the lift and one announcement in a recent regeneration newsletter" informed them they should remain in their flats in the event of fire.

"There are not and never have been any instructions posted in the Grenfell Tower noticeboard or on individual floor as to how residents should act in event of a fire," the blog posting added.  ...
BBC
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4601902/Huge-inferno-West-London-tower-block.html

'Nobody on the top three floors survived': Six dead and dozens missing as massive blaze 'sparked by faulty fridge' engulfs 27-storey tower block in just 15 minutes: Residents hurl themselves from windows while others make ropes from sheets
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