How Many Died in London Fire? Anger Rises as Police Won’t Say for Sure

Find the number of survivors, subtract them from 500-600, and you have the true body count. UK and London refuse to provide a true count or even do a DNA dig. This is class warfare. Grenfell may be the start of the world wide civil war on the wealthy. Mass murder at the least, ignoring safety regs and allowing a building to be wrapped in flammable material for the viewing pleasure of the wealthy.

I strongly object to the headline for this story. Using 'Won't' implies strongly that the police have the data and refuse to release it. Even those who dispute the count admit that they do not know for sure how many residents were in the building when it burned. The term 'Can't' seems to be a much more accurate choice to describe the uncertain numbers.

'...the mosque where most of the residents prayed...' Is this true?. Yes many of the residents were Muslim, but many residents were not.
'But many experts think the census undercounted people in poor immigrant neighborhoods like this one...' Again, not sure this is true either. Kensington and Chelsea is an extremely wealthy borough and so, unfortunately with hindsight, had the resources to spend over £8 million on refurbishment. I think it should be pointed out to USA readers that the vast majority of people living in council tower blocks and council housing, across the UK, are not immigrants or secong generation immigrants. Many Muslim immigrant families tend to club together to buy property, instead of renting. It is the wealthier boroughs that have the money to clad, refurbish and gentrify on this scale, while the more deprived areas, like the north of England for example, would only spend their resources on essential repairs.
Council housing was built to replace the millions of overcrowded Victorian era built slums that were cleared after the war. Most the tower blocks were built from concrete and to strict specifications. Designed to contain a fire in an apartment. If they had not been cladded, the fire could not have spread

The Grenfell Tower victims absolutely CAN AND MUST BE identified and counted!

On 9/11, the Twin Towers burned at very high heat from jet fuel and yet the NYC Medical Examiner's office has identified over 1,000 individuals from recovered remains. So why do London officials (and NYT writers) keep claiming that they may never be able to identify the victims of Grenfell Towers? The problem seems to be a failure of political will, not a failure of science. The NYT should be investigating, not repeating false claims.

Pure D-1 classism. The people who inhabited Grenfell Tower were chavs, lower-class, lower-caste, and therefore of no consequence. That's Britain for you.

I'm surprised that more people don't share my concern that the same thing could happen in Manhattan. My daughter lives in an 11th floor apartment that has no sprinklers or fire stairs (those things with steel doors separate from the rest of the building; I looked it up). There are many old buildings here, and anyone who believes our codes and our adherence to them is perfect is crazy.

The public does not need to know everything. Just because we have 24/7 news services does not mean that the undeserving public need know everything. Let the professionals do their job and believe them when they say they need time. After all, there were many Muslims in that building but there were also a lot of non-Muslims.

First of all we do not know how many people were actually living
in the building and how many were there when the fire started. Some building tenants did not actually live there
physically , they sublet their unit . Others lived there but took in
' boarders ' to supplement their income . In a 23 story building
how is anyone to know who is legally living in the building?
This happens all over in a building of any size . Not as likely in
a small 3 storey building but definitely in a building of any size.

I live in London and nearby this tragedy.

Within days of fire, like others, I went by to see for myself.

The charred remains made me wonder how anyone survived it.

Its a horrible tragedy and God bless them.

Now, I am puzzled as to accusations of a government coverup.

What I have found is that government if anything here is more a nanny state catering to its citizens with all kinds of help. There is no reason for them to hide the toll figure.

For example, even that Borough terrorist attack, the police and government - despite it being in open space and crowd - meticulously documented and identified victims within days. They even searched the river on hearing rumors that someone may have fallen.

This is an unfair crticism of government.

For me, the counting woulld be aided if the residents took upon themselves to provide a floor by floor accounting of who they think were their neighbors.

By canvassing each household, a firmer number of residents in that building would emerge.

If nothing else, residents would feel part of solution to determine the count.

My apartment has only 3 floors with 2 apartments each. I know my neighbor has 4 in his and one family on the first floor has 4. I know nothing about the second floor.

This exercise cant be that difficult if residents stepped to help police and government - rather than expect them to do all the work.

They may simply never know for sure, and it doesn't have to be a conspiracy to hide anything. How many tenants were officially known to the building's owners? How many people were staying with someone temporarily, or just visiting? If they work backwards from lists of missing persons reported from employers, schools, and family and can link them to the tower, that may help but still not be definitive.

The survivors have no faith or trust in the government, which could be doing much more to help process the trauma in an open way. I believe there should be people brought into the mix who will take a reparations type approach, or truth and reconciliation approach. The residents, family, and friends can be attended to with dignity, can be listened to and heard, and the government can be there to try to do the right thing from this point forward. It is clear that, for now, these people don't feel that any of this is happening. It's too bad. However many died, the continued neglect of their survivors only compounds the grief.

In other words, Britain has a massive illegal immigration problem and the government is more or less clueless about how many people are actually in the country.

We comment because we are all still appalled by the horrific deaths of these people, advised by signs in the lifts that they saw each day to stay put in case of fire, no fire drills, no escape stairwells, no sprinklers and so on. Each and every life mattered, let alone the terrifying deaths they endured. Even after cremation, my understanding is that large bones remain. I saw floor plans that showed they were four bedroom flats, and there is no accounting for 23 of them; that alone could be another 100 people. Londoners, you must care about your neighbours. The class system surely is not that callous.

It should be pointed out that this year, at Grenfell Tower, deregulation killed as many people as terrorism did in London and perhaps in all of Britain.

Even before the flames had stopped it was clear that a cover-up was under way. The technique of reporting only so-called confirmed deaths is a well practiced way of minimizing the first impact on those just waking up to the morning news, who will say, oh, that's not so bad and turn their attention elsewhere. Same in the local Ghost Ship fire. The news media themselves should be alert to government game-playing and demand full accountability.

Why would Theresa May want the public to know this damning information? Of course, she will keep it under wraps.

There is nothing political about having a list of tenants in residence. It's a basic safety issue. The fact that no one came forward and said, we have open leases on so many units representing so many people is in and of itself bizarre. That being said, London has a lively property market. There might have been sublets, guest tenants, temporary lodgers through Airbnb and similar arrangements. A diligent investigation would have had that information by now, to a high level of accuracy, via archived ads, witness interviews and bank accounts. There's a motivation to cover things up because of the consequences to those in charge of managing the tenants. Some bureaucrats may have been deliberately breaking the law. There may have been violations of zoning laws. There may have been a willful choice to avert eyes to overcrowding by families renting out their public housing. That is common across London, especially to students who pay steep rents for tiny bedrooms that turn homes meant for a family of 4-6 into 'student housing' for 12-14. But internet accounts exist that can help identify, for example, how many devices were in use at the premises. There are ways to get the facts; none of them are on display, however, as a shocking disaster is being minimized at a sensitive time for a weak Conservative government. Conservatives bang on about law enforcement & security, yet all too often are themselves lax to enforce vital regulations, or demand full accountability.

Coroner's inquest. In the U.K., the local coroner has the authority and jurisdiction to investigate this. Put pressure on the London coroner.

I can understand how it might be difficult or impossible to determine definitively the number of dead. But it seems like it might at least be possible to compile a list of missing persons who were likely to have been at the tower at the time of the fire. Surely there is a centralized list of the missing already in existence based on reports of survivors, family, employers, schools, etc. So, what about the missing?

Politics aside, it appears the investigators of the Grenfell fire are doing excellent forensic work. We know police have spoken to one survivor from each of 106 flats (with no survivors deemed in 23 flats), & forensic anthropologists are assisting in recovery. We know 117 families are receiving financial assistance, & this reflects the hidden occupancy, knowing these families lived in 106 flats. Two independent researcher have arrived at a fatality estimate close to police. Let me remind families of additional delays to expect. First, forensic anthropologists will continue to shift remaining ash to look for even a single tooth, knowing natural teeth can survive the 1,000C heat. DNA may not survive, so researchers will hope & wait for family members to provide dental records, if records even exist. Artifacts, such as a family diamond help identify victims: Finding a diamond near a remain is not enough; How many times does a daughter or son ask a parent to safeguard a valuable? Sadly, news accounts are quoting angry people, such as an individual reporting the "large Muslim families" which is an anachronism; Muslim fertility has fallen dramatically, the 6.5 fertility rate of Moroccan women has fallen to 2.1, close to the non Muslim fertility rate of 1.7. The good news, arising out of horrific pain, is forensic work appears to be excellent.

I cannot help but think that a major reason for the "uncertainty" of how many occupants lived Grenfell Tower is a deliberate stall because of the criminal liability and criminal negligant issues at hand. This low balling of potential victims only makes this tragedy all the more despicable, deplorable and heinous to the survivors and family members of those who perished. Just when you think this story can't get any worse, it does. Instead of offering answers, the Kensington and Chelsea Council continues it's constant flow of excuses and insulting dodging of the truth. Shameful and disgraceful. How do those people sleep at night?

There was another fire in London just few days ago: at a popular market. Big cities, old cities, poorly built cities, decaying cities, poorly managed cities and poor fire proofed buildings in cities are prone to fires...and that too big fires. There are four possibilities for the Grenfell Fire (that appeared to have started in three different places)
1) It is a new MO for terrorists: like using cars or trucks to run over people, now the strategy is to set fires to popular places, big buildings, etc.
2) It was a racist and/or Islamaphobic act against certain immigrants, minorities and Muslims in particular. Hence certain buildings or certain areas (with ethnic or religious minority groups) were targeted.
3) Maybe it was a psycho man who enjoys setting fire, and has now gotten more sophisticated in his MO, or is part of a secret arson group (like gang rapists) that sets big fires with all kinds of sophisticated skills. Ninety nine percent of arsonists are men, hence I used the pronoun "his".
4) There might be people, who either live in that building or have investments in that building, who decided to set fire to collect money (from insurance or from the State). It was a criminal act for monetary reasons.

Investigators have to look at all possibilities and angles.

No matter what reasons for the fire, the fact that the building that large was not adequately fire proof is a serious violation by the building owners, managers and supervisors. They too should face prosecution.

A landlord or landlord's representative should know who is living in his bundling. This wouldn't account for visitors, but not even having an idea of how many people actually lived there and how many apartments were vacant is just one example the sloppy, penny-pinching management that allowed this tragedy to occur in the first place.

Each part of human remains is being collected, collated, checked against any other records of persons who might have been living there, checked against dental records, checked against DNA evidence. All is this is being done because each death is recorded separately, because that's the proper process - and because this may be a crime scene. So the process is slow, methodical, and careful, because it has to be! If coroner's officers just handed out death certificates on the basis of hearsay, then any court case involving the fire would collapse before it started. Imagine that a collection of burnt remains turned out to be two people, not one, or a different person because there was a visitor staying - of course this is taking a long time. The Coroner's department will be completely overwhelmed by this number of complex examinations, they'll be done as they're done. The total will be the total when the work is done, it's that simple. Guesswork, is, well, a guess, but we will have to wait until every single room is searched, every body part identified.

If this occurred in my apartment building, I would think that my landlord is aware of how many people live in my building. How can their superintendent and / or landlord have no actual count of how many people were living in their building?

In the interest of accuracy, the building was not outside the codes when built. There should have been a sprinkler system required, more and pressurized stairways, a full on alarm system, fire-resistant construction, etc. but they were not required. Like most buildings, it was filled with with flammable plastic and foam furnishings/surfaces - derived from and giving off more calories per pound than gasoline and huge volumes of toxic and disabling smoke.
Having constructed a chimney full of fuel, the local authorities allowed it to be sleeved with an even more dangerous shell - ultimately spreading the fire up the exterior beyond the reach of anyone to stop it.
The London Fire Brigade is professionally among the best but the battle was already over before the first 9-9-9 call. The task before them was like being expected to halt the ascent and extinguish the space shuttle after it's left the launch pad.
If someone needs blame it's the legislators, lobbyists, builders and real estate investors that set the bar so low - and the their advocates for the weakened codes that prevailed.

The "government" allows firetraps to be built because (a) it is incessantly criticized over "excess regulation", (b) elected officials do not know anything about firetraps or fire behavior (c) the experts without portfolio (i.e., not lobbying or beholden) have no audience. In other words, money stands in the way of good sense and survival. Oh, and BTW, money is speech - SCOTUS says so.

They don't know, and probably never will, with certainty.
Families: my best wishes. I hope you get some answers.

It would be useful to ascertain on what floors the 255 survivors lived. If the fire broke out on the 7th floor, we know that the occupants on the upper floors were in the greatest danger. I suspect that most of the survivors were on the lower floors, and such information would allow us to more accurately estimate the numbers unaccounted for on the upper floors.
If these deaths were the result of a terrorist attack we would have had immediate estimates of the potential fatalities. In this case, where neglect by the Tory government is to blame for the tragedy, there is clearly great reluctance to admit to the scale of the disaster -- therefore, reasonable estimates and information are hard to come by.

One reason we will never know the actual number is because of the heat of the fire in the upper floors. The intensity of the fire will have been increased with the block acting like a chimney - essentially it became a crematorium. At those sort of temperatures, all that will be left of the body are ashes, indistinguishable from the other debris.

The anger over this colossal tragedy makes sense to me, but I must admit, the exact death toll doesn't seem to make a great deal of difference. For those directly involved, family and friends of the victims, of course they should receive information on who died exactly, but for the public at large, I don't think it changes things to have 123 fatalities instead of 80. It's 50% more, but this is a staggering tragedy with the lowest estimates, it doesn't alter the significance of the worthless building code and execrable treatment of the lower income bracket.

To me, the important things about this fire were the government allowing this firetrap to be built in the first place, the lack of oversight on building codes, the lack of safety procedures, and the clear inability of the London fire department to handle a high-rise fire. I don't think the numerical death toll changes any of these factors in the slightest.

So I think the thing to focus on now is how culpable the government is, and what is being done to prevent this easily avoidable tragedy from happening again, rather than whether the deaths were exactly 80, 93, or 123.