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National
Nicola Slawson (now) Haroon Siddique and Matthew Weaver and Bonnie Malkin (earlier)

Protesters march as anger mounts over Grenfell Tower response – as it happened

Grenfell Tower protesters storm Kensington town hall – video report

We are going to close this blog now, thanks for reading. For all of our coverage of the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower, you can visit our dedicated page.

Here is the latest Guardian report on the anger of residents who are calling on the government for justice:

Evening summary

Here’s a summary of the latest news:

  • More than 70 people remain unaccounted for after the Grenfell Tower blaze and 30 are confirmed dead, it has been revealed. The death toll likely to rise further.
  • Hundreds of protesters angry at the government’s handling of the Grenfell Tower disaster descended on the offices of Kensington town hall before marching back to the scene.
  • A second protest began outside the department for communities and local government in Marsham Street. People then marched through central London chanting “justice for Grenfell”.
  • May announced £5m in handouts as well as support with housing to victims following a visit to the scene where she was heckled and required police protection.
  • A peaceful candlelit vigil was held near the tower to remember the victims.
  • The prime minister later appeared on BBC’s Newsnight where she was grilled by Emily Maitlis on her response to the fire. Her robot-like responses have been slammed in social media.
  • A fire investigation report will not be released publicly until the opening of full inquests into those who have died – which could take years.

Here’s more from that painful to watch Newsnight interview.

Theresa May Newsnight interview 16 06 2017 Grenfell tower fire questions

Photograph: BBC

In one of the most tense parts of the encounter, Maitlis told the PM: “You misread the public mood on this one. You misread the anger that people feel about this.

“They shouted coward after you this afternoon when you left St Clement’s.”

May answered:

What I have done since this incident took place is, first of all yesterday, ensure that public services had the support that they needed in order to be able to do the job they were doing in the immediate aftermath.

Maitlis interjected: “But that’s three days on, prime minister, this is Friday evening. They needed those things in place on Wednesday.

The North Kensington Law Centre, a charitable, non-profit law centre, is raising money to help provide legal support to the victims of Grenfell Tower. The centre has also called for the government to ensure those who survived are not charged to replace vital documents such as passports and immigration status documentation.

The charity is running daily legal clinics to help local residents affected by the disaster to get the legal support and access to justice they need. They are also helping residents gather the documents and paperwork they will require in order to advance any future claims.

Victoria Vasey, director of the centre, says:

This tragedy has been an unmitigated disaster for the community here in North Kensington. We welcome the announcement that victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster would receive some financial help earlier today.

We have written to the home secretary to outline specific steps ministers can take to assist victims. As a start, the government should help those individuals who have lost vital documentation in the blaze by waiving their fees for any replacement.

It is vital these victims are able to obtain this paperwork to help them get back on their feet again.

Fire safety experts called for a ban on the use of combustible materials in the construction of high-rise buildings in the UK as contractors confirmed that panels used to clad Grenfell Tower were the cheaper, more flammable version of two available options.

Here are my colleagues Rob Davies and Ian Sample with that story:

Updated

Emily Maitlis sounded furious when questioning May on BBC’s Newsnight about her response to the fire and the aftermath.

Theresa May Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis on Newsnight
Theresa May Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis on Newsnight Photograph: BBC

After May stressed that she was ensuring support was in place, here’s the response from Maitlis:

Why wasn’t [the support] there in place? Any other tragedy, flooding, you would have the army there, you would have had organisers. I was there on the ground. I saw the chaos for myself. There was no-one in charge and there was no-one willing to a take responsibility.

A clip of the interview is below.

Updated

Illuminated by candlelight, west London came together in grief.

Tower block fire in LondonPeople look at flowers and tributes outside Notting Hill Methodist Church, close to Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building on Wednesday morning. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 16, 2017. See PA story FIRE Grenfell. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire

Nearly three days since a fire ravaged Grenfell Tower, killing at least 30, hundreds of mourners stood arm in arm at a vigil.

Many wept openly as a sea of candles softly illuminated the road outside the Latymer Christian Centre, just yards from the site of the blaze.

Tower block fire in LondonPeople hold candles aloft during a vigil outside Latymer Church, close to Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building on Wednesday morning. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 16, 2017. See PA story FIRE Grenfell. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire

The small building has become the hub of a relief effort, co-ordinating aid and providing support for those displaced.

The hundreds gathered on Bramley Road joined in with renditions of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds, as well as Amazing Grace, during the short service.

Tower block fire in LondonPeople look at flowers and tributes outside Notting Hill Methodist Church, close to Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building on Wednesday morning. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday June 16, 2017. See PA story FIRE Grenfell. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire

Then the crowd were asked to raise candles or torches in the air as they observed two minutes of silence for the dead.

A painstaking recovery effort has been taking place at the gutted tower, with authorities predicting the death toll is likely to rise considerably.

Theresa May defends her response to the tragedy on Newsnight

Theresa May has defended the Grenfell Tower response on BBC’s Newsnight. She was pushed by Emily Maitlis to accept she had misread the public mood and should have met victims on Wednesday.

She dodged the question with this answer:

This was a terrible tragedy. People have lost their lives and other people have lost everything ... What we are doing is putting in place the support that will help them.

Here’s a clip from the interview:

Updated

Here are the front pages of tomorrow’s newspapers. Most editors have chosen to focus on the protests and growing anger.

The Telegraph criticises the “hard-left” for hijacking the protests.

The Times splashes on the police protection Theresa May needed on her visit to the scene.

The Mail’s splash focuses on protesters entering the town hall.

The Mirror chose to compare May’s visit with that the of the Queen.

The Guardian highlights the combustible cladding and also covers the increasing fury.

Updated

Here are some tweets from the candlelit vigil. It is being held at St John’s Church in Notting Hill, which is near the tower.

Crowds at a candlelit vigil for the victims are singing Everything’s Gonna Be Alright by Bob Marley.

There has been speculation that the government has asked media organisations to hide the true extent of the Grenfell Tower disaster by means of a “D-Notice”, now officially known as a DSMA-Notice, as friends and relatives grow increasingly frustrated at the lack of clarity.

None has been issued in relation to the Grenfell Tower fire, the MoD has confirmed to the Guardian.

DSMA-Notices are requests from the government that certain information not be made public by news outlets in the interests of national security. They are voluntary arrangements between Whitehall and the media organisations. Some outlets speculated that such a notice had been put out.

The former later updated its article to say no D-Notice had been issued and the latter said they thought it “unlikely” one had been. Both organisations said they had contacted the Home Office about the issue. The DSMA Committee is part of the Ministry of Defence, not the Home Office.

All active DSMA-Notices are published by the committee that issues them. You can read more about the history of the D-Notice here.

The Metropolitan police have said that at least 30 people are known to have been killed, but that that death toll is expected to rise. Two of them have been named by friends and family as Khadija Saye and Mohammed Alhajali. About 70 more people are thought to be missing.

Nabil Choucair and his brother Hissam stood together with pictures of the six missing members of their family.

His sister, Nadia, her three daughters and family lived on the 22nd floor of Grenfell Tower. The brothers have searched hospitals in the hope of finding them.

Nabil said:

Nadia Choucai
Nadia Choucair.
 Photograph: Avondale Park primary school

At 1.55am, her husband Bassem sent a message to his work saying there was a fire on the 4th floor of his building and apologising. He wrote: ‘We are not able to leave the building ... Sorry guys for letting you down’.

My sister left a message on my phone which said: ‘There’s a fire in our building . We are sitting in our flat. OK. Bye’.

That was the last message they sent. I called her phone but it was just ringing and ringing.

Nabil believed that the published picture of a family silhouetted in flames holding up a towel were his relatives.

“We want answers,” Nabil said. “We want justice. We want the truth. We are all one in this, we are all family together.”

Updated

After a fiery demonstration outside Kensington and Chelsea town hall, and a march through the borough, the protest, which has now reached Lancaster Road and gathered in the shadow of the Grenfell Tower, appears to be winding down.

After arriving at the police cordon by the Notting Hill Methodist church, demonstrators observed a minute’s silence for the victims of the tragedy, before splitting into two groups listening to speakers through different PA systems. There is apparently a smaller gathering also on nearby Latimer Road.

Kusai Rahal said the government needed to be held accountable for the deaths in Wednesday’s inferno.

“What happened over there was murder,” he said. “It was not a mistake, it was simple murder. It’s the government’s fault for seven years of austerity, selling off land to private owners who don’t care about the people, they only care about profit.

“The way Theresa May didn’t even come down to the people, she came and had a little private meeting. You see Jeremy Corbyn come down to the people. At the end of the day the conservatives have lost it, Theresa May has lost it, she just needs to go.

“It’s a reality check, that [tower] right there. It’s like a statue that’s going to stay there for a long time, and it’s in the minds of the people that these people died because they were poor. The government don’t care about working class people.”

Another demonstration is being called for tomorrow at 12 pm outside Kensington and Chelsea town hall, according to a speaker on Lancaster Road.

“We have to keep the pressure on,” he says. “Theresa May needs to go.”

Updated

By 8.15pm the rally, which halted on Lancaster Road below Grenfell Tower, was beginning slowly to disperse.

A thin line of police officers stood behind the fence that closed off the road leading to the base of the charred tower.

A woman carrying a cardboard sign declaring ‘Austerity Kills: Bun the Tories’ folded it away and left.

The central London protest has now moved on. After holding up Oxford Circus, protestors gathered outside the BBC and are now going down Regent street.

It’s worth noting that the protest in Kensington, which is made up of mainly Grenfell Tower residents and the local community, is now winding down. More on that shortly.

The criminal investigation into the Grenfell tower fire has begun taking advice from prosecutors.

Detectives have asked for early guidance from the special crime division of the Crown Prosecution Service. It is understood to involve what charges should be considered, and the evidence required.

A CPS spokesperson said: “A police investigation is under way and we are providing support and advice as required.”

Chris Imafidon, whose home overlooks Grenfell Tower and who spoke to my colleague Lisa O’Carroll earlier, gave an emotional address to the crowd in central London. He was still holding a scorched piece of cladding and also a poster for one of the young children missing in the other hand.

He said: “I’m not here because I support the Tories, Labour or Liberals. I’m here because this child ... on Tuesday went to bed and now nobody knows where this child is.

“I was in front of the block of flats that went up in flames and here [the cladding] is the evidence.”

Updated

Protesters have gathered on Lancaster Road, by the Notting Hill Methodist church, in the shadow of the burned-out shell of Grenfell Tower.

Police are stopping them from going any further. Uniformed officers – not riot police – are making their way to the front of the demo.

Police are expected to take a light touch, given the strong feelings surrounding the protest.

Updated

My colleague Damien Gayle is following those who had been protesting outside the town hall and are now on Lancaster Road marching towards Grenfell Tower. The numbers have swelled along the way.

Updated

A man who posted pictures of a Grenfell Tower victim on social media has been sentenced to three months in prison.

Omega Mwaikambo
Omega Mwaikambo.
 Photograph: Cole James/Metropolitan police

Omega Mwaikambo was found guilty of malicious communications offences.

Mwaikambo pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates court today to two counts under section 127 of the Communications Act.

He received six weeks in prison for each count, to run consecutively, making a total of twelve weeks (three months).

Mwaikambo was originally arrested near to Latimer Road tube station on Wednesday after he posted images relating to the fire at Grenfell Tower on his Facebook page. The images reportedly showed a partially clothed body.

Updated

Protesters walking through the upmarket parts of Notting Hill are calling for the area’s wealthy residents to join their demonstration.

“We all have kids who go to the same schools,” a man says through a PA. “How can this happen in the richest borough in London?”

The demonstration numbers maybe a thousand now, stopping traffic on Holland Park Avenue. The mass chant is: “Justice. Now.”

A chief concern among demonstrators is what they see as the continued downplaying of the death toll in the media. They feel that authorities are trying to manage the impact of the tragedy by withholding its scale from the public.

Updated

Chris Imafidon, a local resident, who came to the Marsham Street protest holding a charred panel of insulation from Grenfell said the council was a disgrace.
“They have not reacted,” he said. “They have not come down to the residents. They have not come to churches and asked, ‘how did you pass Wednesday night, the day after the fire?’”

Several speakers drew roars from the crowds as they called for May to go.

“We are being treated like rubbish. Our people are being murdered,” one speaker said.

Another local resident, Moyra Samuels, insisted survivors would not be uprooted from the locality.

“For a long time in Kensington our communities have been fighting gentrification. We will not have the continuation of ethnic cleansing and social cleansing across our borough,” she said.

“We deserve to live in the same borough as David Cameron, Michael Gove, [Roman] Abramovich and David Beckham.”

She told the Guardian: “This is the anger people are feeling. They have been so ground down by years of Tory councils, this anger had to be channeled somewhere,”

Updated

A Tory councillor responsible for housing on Solihull council appears to have just tweeted something extraordinary at my colleague Martin Belam about the Kensington town hall protest.

Martin tweeted a photograph from the protest and Ken Hawkins responded: “Lets get ourselves a hangin!” and compared them to a lynch mob.

Mustafa Almansur, who organised the protest at Kensington and Chelsea town hall, believes a family friend and her children were killed in the blaze.

Rania Ibrahim, who is a friend of Almansur’s wife, messaged friends and livestreamed a video to Facebook from her 23rd-floor flat as the fire rose through the tower. When her battery ran out, the video cut, and she and her two children have not been heard from since.

Speaking as crowds remained gathered at the entrance of the building, Almansur said the protests would continue.

The protest outside Kensington and Chelsea town hall earlier this evening.
The protest outside the town hall earlier this evening. Photograph: Adam Gray/Barcroft Images

The reason for the protest is that so far in the last three days the general public have done everything from raising money to actually going out there on the streets, helping people, finding the victims of the tragedy, going to the community centres, the churches and the mosques with donations and in cash.

“To this day the council has failed to do anything in public, they have not made a public statement or any public comment. The statement they made today was just a fluffy statement – open-ended promises with no concrete numbers of what they are going to be able to do for the people.

Almansur said protesters had been “unsatisfied” by the council’s responses to their questions, but insisted that they had not sought a confrontation with police.

The people didn’t storm the building, they walked into the building after I read out the statement, unhappy with what they heard. So they said let’s go into the building and get the senior executives to come down, but the police were inside the building already not allowing anybody to go up the stairs. The people stood there and they were speaking in the microphone making their demands be known.

Updated

At the Downing Street protest, Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said fire standards had deteriorated because of years of cuts.
“I heard people saying we need to learn the lessons from Grenfell Tower. These are not new lessons. We learned these lessons 40 years ago and we have to ask why these lessons were not learned.”

Updated

Back at St Clement’s Church, May was also the subject of people’s anger.
A woman, wiping away tears after May’s visit, said: “Everyone has lost everything and no one is doing nothing. This is our town.”

Another man, who did not give his name, said: “What did she bring, what useful things did she bring? The tower block is more strong and stable than that woman’s government.”

Updated

Weyman Bennett, one of the protest organisers, called for May to go. He said it was going to be “a long hot summer” and the working class would come together to oust her.
The crowd of about 500 people are now marching from the Department of Communities on Marsham Street to Downing Street.
Promising the anger would swell the crowds on the protest he told marchers: “By the time we get to Downing Street, we will know if we are then going to join the others in Kensington town hall or if they will come to Downing Street.”

Updated

My colleague Damien Gayle is reporting that protesters have now left the hall and are marching back to the tower to join the other protest there.

Updated

An angry member of the public calls on people to march on Downing St tonight. “Theresa May is not fit to be PM,” he says.

He said he grew up in a council flat. “Council housing used to be safe, affordable. We could put out children to bed and know they would get up in the morning.”

Updated

Carolyne Hill, 39, from Brixton, said she came to the Kensington demo to “make a stand for my fellow Londoners”.


She said: “I believe that the council is supposed to protect its people. This council committed basic gross negligence in providing basic human rights in their fire safety – people died in their homes.

“The council is following legislation made by the government, the government has made cuts in every single borough. This is the result of our government, our councils not caring about their people.

“They’ve put profit over people now for far too long. This is the result.”

Updated

Victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster will be asked how the public inquiry into the fire should be carried out, Theresa May has announced.

Survivors and the families of those who died in the devastating blaze will also be given state funding for legal representation at the probe, the prime minister told residents during a visit to a nearby church.

The package of measures to help the families affected by the Grenfell Tower fire will include £5m of cash donations to be distributed to residents, after the government faced growing criticism over its botched response to the disaster.

My colleagues Heather Stewart and Jessica Elgot have more on that here:

Updated

Local residents were disappointed that the prime minister did not speak to them after her visit to the St Clement’s church, and her swift departure led to shouts of “shame on you” and “coward” from a large crowd of people who had waited outside the church to hear her say something.

Simon McDonald
Simon McDonald
 Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

Simon McDonald, who works doing youth training with an organisation called Inspired Possibilities, and who grew up in the area, had come to volunteer his services. He was disappointed that the prime minister didn’t stop and talk to affected families outside the building. “We were looking for her to say that she is here with the community,” he said. “She just needed to say a few words of comfort.”

Paul Dhillon, who works near the block and who was there on the night the fire happened, was cynical about her decision to visit. “She’s just doing damage limitation, because she screwed up her polls,” he said.

Layla, who lives in the block beneath the tower, and who waited in vain to see Theresa May, said she didn’t think that there was anything the prime minister could have said to locals that would have made them feel better. “What could she have said? We’ve got so much pain and hurt. We saw it and we live on it.”

Updated

Around 100 protesters held a minute’s silence for the victims of Grenfell Tower outside government offices, saying the victims of recent terror attacks were treated with more respect than those in the inferno.
“There has been no minute’s silence for the victims of Grenfell. We want to remind politicians that people killed by politicians are equally as valuable as those killed by terrorists,” said one speaker before the crowd fell silent for one minute.

Updated

Chris Milson, a lawyer at Cloisters Chambers, went to the area of Grenfell Tower to volunteer today, and has been left frustrated at the lack of organisation and oversight being provided.

“There are a lot of people, with a lot of goodwill but it’s very fragmented - where the oversight need to be it just isn’t. There are so many donations, so many volunteers but not much in the way of co-ordination, which is where the council should be stepping in.”

He added: “I haven’t seen this much aid out of a war zone, but the council just hasn’t stepped in. There is too much in the way of donations. But the problem is how to get it to the right people, and what you do with the surplus. One man, I’m sure with the bestof intention, left a massive box full of milk - and now volunteers have to figure out what to do with a box of gone-off milk.”

He said he’d been told that the council was due to meet with community centres who have been attempting to help. “There is so much goodwill, but people are having to step in where the state should be. This is one of the richest borough’s in the country, but they are letting volunteer groups step in and fill the void.”

Volunteers continue to steam to the area, but there appears to be no one stationed at tube stations directing donations and volunteers to where they may be needed. “People who want to help are wandering around like nomads, there’s just this huge vacuum where leadership should be.”

He said he had a sense that anger was growing, not just among residents but volunteers and the general public. “There is a palpable sense of anger, not just from residents but in general about the society we live in. It’s kicked London in the teeth because it has brought home just how unequal the city is.”

Mustafa Almansur, who organised the protest at Kensington and Chelsea town hall with the Radical Housing Network, which is a London-wide alliance of grassroots housing campaigns of which Grenfell Action Group are a member.

Almansur is a family friend of someone who is missing.

A statement on the network’s Facebook said: “Protest at Kensington Town Hall to demand that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are held accountable for the deaths and horrific harm of Grenfell, that residents and housing movements’ demands are met, and that this atrocity can never happen again.”

The group have organised a further protest on Saturday, which hundreds have signed up to on Facebook. A further 1000 have expressed interest.

Using the event page, organisers called for people to come and show their support for tonight’s protest as well, which could mean many more join the already heated protest. The group is also posting legal advise and phone numbers for anyone attending who gets arrested.

Updated

Rochelle Thomas, from Latimer Road, just a street away from the Grenfell Tower fire, stood near the doors to the council building with a homemade poster listing the names of council officials she and others are holding responsible for the tragedy.

Tensions are running high because we have had no answers yet,” she said. “This is the third day, we don’t know where the survivors are, there are hundreds of thousands of donations and we don’t know where to take them because we don’t know where the survivors are.

The councils are telling us nothing and we don’t know if the council even care; they’ve done nothing so far.

She called on the council to help the traumatised residents affected by the fire.

We need them to rehabilitate everyone whose lost their homes, and we need to know what steps the council’s going to take for the mental health of the thousands who are affected: the people who were in the building, the people who lost their friends and the people who witnessed children being thrown from the windows.

There are people who still can’t sleep because they are having nightmares about this.

Hundreds are still gathered in the street outside Kensington and Chelsea town hall, after police managed to regain control of the lobby which had been invaded earlier by furious demonstrators. “What do we want? Justice!” protesters are chanting. “When do we want it? Now!”

Speeches continue in the square outside the building’s main entrance, as a police helicopter buzzes overhead. Many here have said they were personally affected by the fire and are now seeking answers from officials who they say did too little to prevent it, and are still doing too little to deal with its aftermath.

Earlier, hundreds pushed their way into the lobby, hammering on the glass doors and getting halfway up a staircase until their path was blocked by police.

It is thought that a demonstration that was intended to take place outside the Department for Communities and Local Government in Whitehall will now be redirected to Kensington. Some around the area are covering their faces, but others are calling for the demonstration to remain peaceful. The situation is tense.

At St Clement’s church, the prime minister was greeted as she left the building and got in her car by shouts of “shame on you” and “coward, coward”. She did not speak to anyone as she left.

One local said: “The tower block is more strong and stable than that woman.”

There was a brief scuffle between one protester and some of the more than 30 police lined up outside the building.

The prime minister, Theresa May, leaves St Clement’s church in west London.
The prime minister, Theresa May, leaves St Clement’s church in west London. Photograph: David Mirzoeff/PA

Channel 5 News has footage of the incident. Warning: the video below contains swearing.

Updated

Theresa May has announced a package of measures to help the families affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, including £5m of cash handouts to be distributed to residents, after the government faced growing criticism over its botched response to the disaster.

After being widely criticised for failing to meet victims face to face, the prime minister paid two visits to the scene of the deadly blaze on Friday.

She met victims at a nearby hospital, before returning to Downing Street to chair a two-hour crisis meeting of cabinet ministers, including the home secretary, Amber Rudd, and communities secretary, Sajid Javid, to agree what action should be taken.

May then returned to the area, where families affected by the blaze were gathered in a local church to speak to her. She told them the government would make £5m available, to be distributed by the local council, for affected families to pay for anything they need – including funeral costs.

The government is pledging that all residents displaced by the fire will be rehoused locally within three weeks, close enough so that children can attend the same school. And, when the public inquiry into the tragedy gets under way, May said local people would be consulted and would also be given access to free legal representation, so that their concerns can be aired.

Downing Street sources said the prime minister had been prompted to act after hearing traumatic stories from residents who fled the scene in the early hours of the morning, “with nothing apart from the clothes they stood up in”.

The two-hour cabinet committee meeting marked an escalation after the government had initially relied on junior ministers to tackle the consequences of the fire, categorising it as a “civil contingency”.

Updated

The prime minister is reportedly in a church near Grenfell Tower and a crowd have gathered outside to protest:

Sky are reporting that there has been an arrest at the protest. Their correspondent, Enda Brady, said he was moving away from the scene for his own safety as the atmosphere was growing hostile towards the media.

Mounted police and other officers are at the scene of the protests. Some entered the town hall, others have just been monitoring the crowd. They have been greeted by some boos.

Protesters outside Kensington town hall
Protesters outside Kensington town hall. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Updated

Unite is to donate £100,000 to the Red Cross London fire relief appeal set up to assist people affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

The union has dozens of members living in the tower, some of whom have lost their lives. It also announced it would be providing legal assistance to the residents to ensure they are able to pursue the inquiry it says is now urgently needed.

The general secretary, Len McCluskey, said:

We must get answers as to how this happened and action to ensure that this never happens again.

Unite itself is grieving at the loss of our members who lived in that tower. We are volunteering on the ground in an effort to offer the community every assistance during this traumatic time.

We will not rest until the full truth of what has gone is uncovered and we will not be allowing the shameful cuts to legal aid to prevent that truth from being exposed. Unite is sending lawyers to the community and has set up a freephone number for anyone needing legal assistance.

Updated

This video shows the council’s statement being read to protesters outside Kensington town hall:

Updated

Labour has called on the government to lift the borrowing cap on housing revenue account so councils can pay for all housing to meet safety standards.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said:

The tragic fire that occurred on Grenfell Tower must never be allowed to happen again. The lessons of Camberwell, Shepherd’s Bush and Southampton have not been learned, and it is the responsibility of government to provide solutions.

The government must now as a matter of urgency lift the housing revenue account borrowing cap to free councils to undertake the urgent retrofitting work required on all existing housing stock found not to meet required safety standards.

Councils must also be given the power, as Labour’s housing manifesto pledges to do, to borrow to invest in council housing on the scale necessary to allow all those living in homes deemed to be unsafe to be properly rehoused.

Updated

Emotions are running high at the protest at Kensington and Chelsea town hall. They were demanding that the chief executive or council leader come out to address them but instead were given a written response by the council’s head of communications.

There were many chants of “Not 17”, a reference to the fact that they believe many more than 17 perished (the official toll has actually been raised to 30).

Updated

The second demand by the protesters was that funds be released by the council to help those affected in the short and long term.

The council statement said:

We are already releasing funds to look after the immediate effects of all those affected.

The protesters also requested a list of the number of people in Grenfell Tower.

The response was:

This is not a matter for the council but for the coroner, police and other emergency services.

The council’s head of communications said he would strive to get them a number of residents by the end of the day, Mustafa, who was reading the council’s responses, said.

Updated

A response from Kensington council’s head of communications to the five demands of the protesters is being read out by a protester named Mustafa.

There’s a lot of anger as he is reading them.

The first was demand was that people be housed in the borough.

In response, the statement says they will be housed “as locally as we can but we may need help from the closest neighbourhoods”.

Protesters enter Kensington town hall

Over at Kensington town hall, protesters have entered the building and are in the lobby chanting: “We want justice.”

Updated

The Sky News reporter Joe Tidy is broadcasting live from a protest that began at Grenfell Tower and is headed towards Kensington town hall, where another protest is already taking place (see below). People are chanting: “We want answers. We want justice.”

Tidy says it appears to be a spontaneous protest.

Updated

There is a palpable anger outside Kensington and Chelsea town hall. News cameras are focused on Lily Allen, but among local people there is discomfort with the authorities and the media.

“Why are the media lying for Theresa May?” one local woman asked. “It’s disgusting.”

Another woman said:

We’re angry, very upset. We feel we’re on our own. The firemen, they say they are angry. The only people that have been honest to us are the firemen.

Crowds are continuing to gather and a speaker called on demonstrators to remain in place until the council leaders make a statement pledging an independent investigation and rehousing for all those affected.

Updated

A former British army officer who is leading the volunteer effort at Notting Hill Methodist church said the devastation caused by the fire was comparable to that he had witnessed at war.

Ian Pilcher, a former captain who served with the King’s Regiment in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and north Africa, has been helping with logistics at the church since Wednesday.

Pilcher, 50, now a private security consultant, said the church had received a couple of metric tonnes of food, drink and toiletries, as well as seven Luton vans full of clothing. From predominantly walk-in donations, the church had also received televisions, mobile phones and even vehicles, he said.

Pilcher woke to the noise of “siren after siren after siren” in the early hours of Wednesday and witnessed the blaze. He said:

In many ways it’s like being in a war because of the number of innocent people. In places like Bosnia there were many innocent people and there was a clear enemy. Here, nobody expected to die in their beds because there’s a fire.

I left the army in expectation of a peaceful life. Nobody expects this sort of thing to happen so close to home.

Pilcher said volunteers had arrived from across London and outside the capital to help.

Updated

The Guardian has heard that Corpus Christi College in Oxford is no longer taking donations. The Central Gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Kensington and Chelsea is also now closed for donations. However, people still keen to give can send items to the community centre on 57 Acklam Road, W10 5YS. Many centres have now been overwhelmed with donations, so it’s advisable to call up first before sending items down. It also may be better to offer support in other ways, for example as a volunteer, helping to sort through donations, or by giving money to the British Red Cross fund.

Volunteers organise boxes of donations near Grenfell Tower
Volunteers organise boxes of donations near Grenfell Tower. Photograph: David Mirzoeff/PA

Updated

Seraphima Kennedy, who worked for the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) between 2007 and early 2016, told BBC Radio 4’s the World at One that the organisation was “massively overstretched”.

The TMO, like lots of other housing providers in London and across the country was functioning in a severely squeezed environment. They were massively overstretched.

She added:

This cuts right to the heart of how the state views the poorest people in society. We have sprinklers in society; we don’t have them in high rise council blocks. Because they are too expensive? Because it would be disruptive? I mean it really does make you ask questions about how the state values lives and which lives it values.

Kennedy has written this for the Guardian.

Updated

What we know so far

Here’s a summary of where things currently stand:

Updated

Authorities already under fire for their insensitivity have rubbed salt into the wounds of residents near Grenfell Tower by hand-delivering them letters today about antisocial behaviour (the warning relates to ball games played in the courtyard), ITV’s Paul Brand tweets. The letter, from the tower’s management company KCTMO, is dated Wednesday, the day of the fire.

Updated

Footage of a massive fire at an empty block in Frankfurt in 2012 that was clad in polystyrene, or styrofoam, featured in a German TV documentary.

Frankfurt’s fire director Reinhard Ries is on camera saying: “The fire took hold extremely quickly, reaching incredible temperatures immediately.”

The styrofoam soon turned into a “liquid, burning sea”, he says. “Everything within 300 seconds had developed into a huge fireball as if thousands of litres of petrol had been set alight.”

The incident led to Frankfurt fire services putting out a nationwide appeal to firefighters to log similar fires – 100 were logged up until 2017 – and Ries and his department started lobbying German politicians to rethink cladding whose main purpose was to increase insulation and energy efficiency.

Updated

Council to clarify rehousing statement

Kensington and Chelsea council is rowing back on its statement that it may not be able to house all the surviving victims of the Grenfell Tower fire in the local area.

A spokesman said its statement sent out at 1.46pm was “wrong”.

It said:

While we will try do our utmost to ensure those affected remain in or near the borough, given the number of households involved, it is possible the council will have to explore housing options that may become available in other parts of the capital.

The housing minister Alok Sharma told MPs on Thursday that the government guaranteed “that every single family” from the Tower would be rehoused in the local area.

A council spokesman said: “Our understanding has changed. Once our housing people have looked at this in greater detail we will be issuing a new statement.”

Updated

King’s College hospital is to lodge a complaint with the press watchdog over a journalist who allegedly impersonated a friend of a victim of the Grenfell Tower fire in order to get an interview with him.

The hospital is to file a complaint with the Independent Press Standards Organisation about the behaviour of the Sun reporter. It has also written to News UK, the publisher of the Sun, Times and Sunday Times, about the incident.

“Following an incident at King’s College hospital, we have formally written to the Sun and will be informing the Independent Press Standards Organisation,” said a spokeswoman for King’s College hospital NHS foundation trust. “We are unable to comment on the specifics until our complaint has been investigated.”

It is understood that the Sun was trying to get an interview with Mario Gomes, a resident on the 21st floor who has been hailed as a hero after racing back into the building to find his 12-year-old daughter.

Some Grenfell residents to be rehoused outside the area

People who have lost their homes in the Grenfell Tower fire may be rehoused in other areas of London despite commitments by the government to house them locally.

Kensington and Chelsea council said 110 households had been given temporary accommodation by Friday morning, and added that it was working to find more permanent homes.

But the authority’s latest statement said: “While we will try do our utmost to ensure those affected remain in or near the borough, given the number of households involved, it is possible the council will have to explore housing options that may become available in other parts of the capital.”

The households include people living in nearby blocks which have been evacuated because of the disaster.

The housing minister Alok Sharma told MPs on Thursday that the government guaranteed “that every single family” from the tower would be rehoused in the local area.

Theresa May gave a vaguer commitment. On Thursday she said: “I want to reassure the residents of Grenfell Tower – all of whom are in our thoughts and prayers – that the government will make every effort to make sure that they are rehoused in London and as close as possible to home.”

In his letter to the prime minister, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, urged May to “confirm as a matter of urgency that everyone from Grenfell Tower and other evacuated properties will be rehoused locally immediately”. (see earlier)

Updated

Boris Johnson accuses Labour of 'outrageous politicking' over fire

Boris Johnson has posted on Facebook to accuse Labour of “outrageous politicking” over the Grenfell Tower fire.

After lamenting that “there has sadly been some political game playing about the terrible fire in London,” the former mayor of London goes on to criticise his successor Sadiq Khan and the Labour party. Johnson defends his record on fire safety during his time as mayor, stating that the number of fires and number of fire-related deaths fell year-on-year during his tenure.

Boris Johnson’s Facebook post about the Grenfell Tower fire
Boris Johnson’s Facebook post about the Grenfell Tower fire Photograph: Facebook/Boris Johnson

Johnson is correct about fire safety improving during his terms as mayor. However, as this chart from the London fire brigade shows, that has to be seen in the context of a pre-existing trend downwards that had started well before Johnson assumed office in 2008.

Graph showing diminishing number of fires in Greater London
Graph showing diminishing number of fires in Greater London Photograph: London Fire Brigade

Johnson’s comments haven’t gone down entirely well on the social network. One of the comments prominently displayed under the foreign secretary’s post says:

Gosh, Boris. So your opinion is more valid than the hundreds of fire fighters that are in direct opposition to your spin and lies? Man up for once and take it on the chin.

Updated

The lead architect for Grenfell Tower was Nigel Whitbread, who worked for Clifford Wearden and Associates. Whitbread is believed to live in Kensington, London, within half a mile of Grenfell Tower.

The building began in 1972 and finished in 1974. It was renovated last year, with external cladding added to the design. Serious questions have been raised about the new cladding.

Last year, the artist Constantine Gras described meeting Whitbread and escorting him on a tour around the estate. On the tour, Whitbread met residents and said it was “delightful to hear that residents thought flat arrangements worked well”.

Whitbread wrote an article about the development, saying it was the “first and only tower block I designed”.

In his article for Gras’s blog, Whitbread said that the Grenfell design had been influenced by the partial collapse of Ronan Point in Newham, east London, and was structured to stand for over a century.

Whitbread said: “Ronan Point, the tower that partially collapsed in 1968, had been built like a pack of cards. Grenfell tower was a totally different form of construction and from what I can see could last another 100 years.”

Whitbread, 78, said the Grenfell building was unusual in that it was designed so that “you could take away all those internal partitions and open it up if that’s what you wanted to do in the future”.

Whitbread said he went for an unusual internal apartment layout.

“I also don’t know of any other council built tower block in London or anywhere else in England that also has the central core and six flats per floor rather than four flats which is typically done on the London county council or Greater London council plans.”

Whitbread and his team decided that “putting bricks one on top of the other for 20 storeys was a crazy thing to do”.

Instead, we “used insulated pre-cast concrete beams as external walls, lifted up and put into place with cranes and they were so much more quicker”.

Discussing last year’s renovations before the disaster, Whitbread said the cladding had improved the insulation, but changed the building’s appearance. “We lost some of this verticality in the recent recladding but it’s not the end of the world. And the building is now better insulated as we had different standards then.”

Whitbread also said he was concerned about questions over the heating. He said: “I’m very much against knocking things down unnecessarily. I had heard that there had been problems a few years ago with the heating and it was no good and talk of the whole block having to come down. And I thought, if my heating goes wrong, I don’t want to pull my house down.”

Construction of Grenfell Tower.
Construction of Grenfell Tower.

Updated

More than 70 people remain unaccounted for from the Grenfell Tower blaze and 30 are confirmed dead, it has been revealed.

Police released updated figures on the fatalities as anger in the community grew over what residents said was a lack of information being released to them.

In a press briefing that was marked by the anger of residents who shouted their own questions at police and fire service representatives, commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan police said 30 people were now confirmed dead, including one victim who died in hospital. But he acknowledged that the number of fatalities would increase.

The scale of the disaster became stark as it was revealed for the first time that 70 people were believed to be unaccounted for since the blaze. Police fear the fire was so intense and devastating that some victims may never be identified.

Cundy said 12 bodies are in the mortuary but a number still remain in Grenfell Tower, where a dignified and careful retrieval operation would take place in hazardous conditions. But, he said, this could take many weeks.

Cundy said he expected the death toll to rise further. “I do believe that sadly the number will rise.

Updated

Khan urges May to do more to help

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has written to the prime minister urging her to do more to help provide information to the families of the victims.

In his letter Khan said identification of those killed could be sped up if the authorities abandoned protocols used after a terrorist attack. He wrote:

The local community feels their grief has been made worse by the lack of information about their missing family members and friends. They are fully aware of the true scale of this tragedy but cannot comprehend why they are not being given more information. There is also insufficient support for victims on the ground.

I appreciate that the authorities want to be absolutely certain that any information is correct before it is issued publicly, and the fire brigade, police and coroner are doing a heroic job obtaining this information in extremely difficult circumstances. While the current systems in place may work well for a terrorist attack, there are legitimate questions about whether they are still appropriate in situations where obtaining this information could take much longer.

Khan also said the scale of this tragedy is “proving too much for the local authority to cope with on their own”. He said tower block residents were “terrified that the same thing could happen to them”. He wrote:

This issue is not limited to the type of cladding fitted: the material it is attached to and how this has been achieved are also critical factors. It is crucial that other risks from renovation works are urgently and properly investigated, for example protection between floors. And we need to strengthen standards and recall processes around white goods, given the fire risk they can present.

If the government has any reason to believe specific tower blocks could be at risk, residents should be rehomed in the local area immediately, while these checks take place.

Updated

Cladding on Grenfell was cheaper

Material used in the cladding that covered the Grenfell Tower was the cheaper, more flammable version of the two available options, an investigation of the supply chain has confirmed.

Omnis Exteriors manufactured the aluminium composite material (ACM) used in the cladding, a director, John Cowley, confirmed to the Guardian.

He also said Omnis had been asked to supply Reynobond PE cladding, which is £2 cheaper per square metre than the alternative Reynobond FR, which stands for “fire resistant”.

“We supplied components for a system created by the design and build team on that project,” said Cowley.

Harley Facades confirmed it had installed the panels bought from Omnis in the work it performed on Grenfell Tower.

Omnis sold ACM cladding to Harley Facades, which was responsible for installing it.

The construction firm Rydon Maintenance was the lead contractor on the project but subcontracted elements of the work to smaller companies, including Harley.

Updated

The Queen meets members of the community affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower in west London during a visit to the Westway sports centre
The Queen meets members of the community affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower in west London during a visit to the Westway sports centre Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Almost exactly 24 hours after Downing Street said the prime minister couldn’t possibly meet victims of the Grenfell disaster because of security concerns, the Queen and Prince William’s visit to Latimer Road came with minimal security.

They drove up in a green Range Rover – dog gates up at the back, although the corgis stayed at home – with so little fanfare several locals walked right past them, unaware of the identities of the latest wellwishers to Westway sports centre, applauding instead the firefighters who walked behind her.

The centre, in the shadow of the now burnt-out shell of the Grenfell, has, in the past 48 hours, become a shelter for residents left homeless by the tragedy: the usually popular basketball courts are filled with boxes of donations while volunteers estimate about 30 people are still sleeping in the centre, many of whom almost certainly used to use the facilities for very different purposes.

The Queen, in matching royal blue coat and hat, accompanied by her grandson, spoke first to volunteers and police officers before meeting some of the victims outside. “She looked like she had so much compassion, like she understood what we’ve been through,” said Rihanna Levi, 17, who spoke to her and lived next to the tower.

“She spoke about how awful it must have been in the stairways when the lights went out and there was so much smoke,” Levi added.

“I can’t say I’m surprised because I always knew she was someone who cared,” said Vassilli Stavropol-Loren, who has lived in a neighbouring tower block for 34 years. “She understood the gravity.”

How did they feel about the other politicians who have visited? “You could see Corbyn stands by his word,” said Rihanna Levi’s mother, Marcia.

And the prime minister? Naomi, Rihanna’s 28-year-old sister, shrugged. “I have no words about that woman,” she said.

She did, however, have plenty of words about the council. She said: “We’ve seen no one from the council. No one. And we can’t even get through to the TMO [tenant management organisation]. I have an eight-year-old child and yesterday we had to sleep in the park for four hours. But the police and firefighters have been terrific, always checking we have water.”

The Queen and Prince William stayed inside the centre for 20 minutes, leaving at a leisurely pace and declining to pose for photos. At this point a small group of locals had gathered outside and started shouting at her, begging her to look at photos of their missing loved ones. The Queen glanced towards them, nodded, smiled and left.

One man shouted furiously at her departing car, holding a photo of two babies he said were family members. He said they were “left to die in that tower”, adding: “Where was the Queen before this? Where was the government? Where was the media? You only come now! Left to die here by all of you, and the police, and firefighters.”

“Not the police and firefighters,” another local said. “OK, not them,” he said.

A man holds up a missing persons poster as the Queen and the Duke of Cambridge leave.
A man holds up a missing persons poster as the Queen and the Duke of Cambridge leave. Photograph: Tim Ireland/AP

Updated

Met police commander Stuart Cundy makes a statement to the media against the backdrop of the remains of Grenfell Tower.
Met police commander Stuart Cundy makes a statement to the media against the backdrop of the remains of Grenfell Tower. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Here are the main points from the Met commander Stuart Cundy’s press conference.

The investigation

The investigation will establish the facts. This will be about providing as best we possibly can answers for those that have been so deeply and tragically affected by the terrible fire here at Grenfell Tower. The investigation will look into what criminal offences may have been committed. It will be undertaken by a number of specialist detectives using expertise and specialism from other organisations where required.

Our specialist investigators and experts have examined what we believe is the original location where the fire started. Based on what we know there is nothing to suggest that the fire was started deliberately.

It is important that we can find the answers as to what has happened and why.

If criminal offences have been committed it is us who will investigate that.

The victims

Sadly, as I’ve said before, we always knew that the number of those that have died would increase. At this point in time we know that at least 30 people have died as a result of this fire. Sadly and tragically that includes one person who was taken to hospital and despite the very best medical care, from the NHS, has now sadly died.

Twelve of those victims have been taken to the mortuary. A number of those bodies, sadly still remain here within Grenfell Tower.

The search for bodies

There are no fires within the building … The conditions within Grenfell Tower are particularly hazardous. It is going to take us a considerable period of time to fully work through Grenfell Tower over the coming weeks to ensure that we complete our investigation here within the building itself. As an absolute priority, what we are all doing is, as quickly and with as much dignity as we can, recovering those that are still inside. Sadly we do not expected there to be any survivors.

Delay in identifying victims

I will only say something that I know to be true. I know at this point in time that there are at least 30 people that have died in this fire. The very nature of the intense fire that has occurred … I do believe that the number will increase.

The building itself is in a very hazardous state. It is going to take a period of time for our specialists, both from the police and the London fire brigade, to fully search that building to make sure we locate and recover everybody that has sadly perished in that fire.

I completely understand the need for those that have lost loved ones, that as quick as we can we are able to confirm that.

The missing

We have specialist and dedicated family liaison officers supporting 36 families. It is difficult to know how many are missing. Through our casualty bureau we are working through often duplicate calls, where people have phoned in to report a loved one as missing. There are considerable number of those calls which we need to work through to identify the final number. As soon as we have a number that I’m content is accurate I will be sharing that.

The injured

The latest update from the hospitals is that we still have 24 people who are being treated, 12 of those are in critical care. Everybody who is in hospitals has been identified and their families are aware.

Updated

Khadija Saye named as victim

The artist Khadija Saye has been named as one of the victims, according to a family friend, the Labour MP David Lammy.

Saye, 24, was in her flat on the 20th floor with her mother, Mary Mendy.

She had posted on Facebook that she was unable to get out of the flat because the smoke was too thick. Family members confirmed the news to Sky News. Saye, a photographer, had recently exhibited at the Venice Biennale.

Updated

Cundy was asked why it was taking so long to identify the victims. “I do believe the number will increase,” he said. The building is in a hazardous condition, he said.

He said he would only give figures the police are certain about.

Cundy is heckled by residents.

He said he can’t say how many people are missing. Everyone being treated in hospitals has been identified, Cundy said.

Updated

Met: 'we don't expect survivors'

There is nothing to suggest the fire was started deliberately, Cundy said.

The investigation into the cause of the fire will take weeks, he added.

“Sadly we do not expect there to be any survivors,” Cundy said.

30 people confirmed dead

The Met police commander, Stuart Cundy, said: “We know that at least 30 people who have died.”

One of those included someone who was taken to hospital, he said.

The bodies have been taken to a morgue, but more bodies remain in the building, Cundy said.

We always knew that the death toll would increase, Cundy said.

Updated

The government appears to be determined to show that ministers are willing to listen to victims of the fire today, after the prime minister refused to do so yesterday.

The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, said the government was doing all it could.

Speaking to the BBC after visiting the Westway sports centre, he said:

I’m listening to the victims about some of their particular needs. I heard one family just say they have sadly lost their father, they don’t know yet. The mother has asked if her son, who doesn’t live locally, can be with her, and we have said absolutely. We should be helping in every way we can to try to bring comfort to these families at this very very difficult time.

Updated

The former chancellor George Osborne is using his new position as editor of the London Evening Standard to criticise the way his former colleagues are handling the aftermath of the fire.

Updated

There were emotionally charged scenes as the Queen and Duke of Cambridge left the Westway sports centre.

Stood beneath the rumbling Westway flyover, the Queen and Prince William had finished meeting firefighters and police officers who responded to the Grenfell Tower fire, when a distraught man beckoned them to come over.

Clutching a missing appeal poster for siblings Firdaws and Yahya, Rami Mohamed said he was a friend of the missing children’s family.

The Queen climbed into her Range Rover escort as the Prince apologised and pledged to “come back” to the Westway centre, which is operating as a relief centre for displaced evacuees and family members of the missing.

When the royal family departed, Mohamed said he was frustrated that so many people arrived for the monarch but felt like his friends were being left behind.

The Queen and the prince spent about 30 minutes in the centre visiting those affected, the day after Theresa May declined to visit the area over security concerns.

Updated

Theresa May visits victims at hospital

Theresa May has been filmed entering the Chelsea and Westminster where nine of the victims are being treated.

An update from NHS England on Thursday said seven victims of the fire were in critical care at the hospital.

May is facing mounting criticism of her response to the tragedy after she failed to meet residents on a visit to the scene on Thursday.

Here’s confirmation of the Queen meeting residents before Theresa May managed to do so.

Theresa May continues to face criticism for her handling of the aftermath of the fire.

Updated

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has called for homes to be “requisitioned if necessary” in order to house those left homeless by the Grenfell Tower disaster. He also condemned the practice of buy-to-leave.

“It is hardly acceptable that in London you have luxury buildings and luxury flats kept empty, as land banks for the future, while the homeless and the poor look for somewhere to live,” he said.

Kensington and Chelsea has more empty properties than any other borough in the capital, government figures indicate.

Data on occupied and vacant housing stock from the Department of Communities and Local Government shows that 1,399 dwellings in the borough were long-term vacant as of last year.

With a total of 86,920 dwellings, that amounts to about 1.61% of all dwellings. ‘Long-term vacant’ properties have been empty for more than six months, so the figure excludes properties that might be between sales or temporarily unoccupied.

Kensington and Chelsea, one of the richest boroughs in the country, imposes an “empty homes premium” of an extra 50% on the council tax payable for uninhabited properties. The second highest proportion of empty homes was in Camden, where 1,114 homes, or 1.09% of the total, were long-term vacant. In Hackney, the figure was 1,046, or 0.97%.

Long-term vacant dwellings in London boroughs
Long-term vacant dwellings in London boroughs

Reasons for homes being left empty are often complex. In some instances the home will have fallen into such a state of disrepair that renovating it is too expensive for the owner. In other instances it can be as a result of “buy to leave”, whereby investors acquire property solely as an asset that will appreciate thanks to London’s booming property market.

There are an array of other measures councils can take to reduce vacant housing stock, such as financing the renovation of decrepit properties, and even mechanisms to force landlords to return properties to use. But some are so complicated that they are “ignored” or not used.

Last year the Guardian established that more than 8,500 homes across the capital had been empty for more than two years. 1,100 had been left empty for more than a decade.

Updated

These are the top “how to help” questions being asked on Google.

Here are the answers:

How to help London fire victims?

Many have given food and clothes, writing messages of support and donating to various fundraising websites. But volunteers are struggling to cope with the amount of physical donations, and have suggest cash donations would be more helpful.

How to donate to London fire victims?
Donation drop-off points have received a huge number of items. Please check what’s needed before heading to chosen collection points. Donation centres within the Grenfell area are particularly inundated with donations. Harrow Club urged people to stop sending donations.

The Rugby Portobello Trust said it could not accept donations at this time as they need to sort and distribute what they have so far. They also said they do not require volunteers at this time.

An independent website has been set up to share information in relation to Grenfell. The site includes a full list of where you can donate. It also says whether these sites are collecting or not.

Where to donate clothes for fire victims?

The sites still collecting clothes include the Central Gurdwara (The Big Sikh Temple) in Shepherd’s Bush. However, many other places already have enough clothes and have asked for no more.

What to donate to the fire victims?

Check first, but items that may be helpful include:

  • Nappies
  • Baby food and formula
  • Hijabs
  • Clothes
  • Toothbrushes and toiletries (making up care packs would be great)
  • Phone chargers
  • Hot meals
  • Blankets
  • Water
  • Sanitary towels

Alternatively you can make a cash donation to a new Red Cross appeal.

How to donate to firefighters?

Various websites are calling for donations, including this JustGiving one specifically for firefighters.

Updated

The Queen arrived with her grandson the Duke of Cambridge at a rest centre helping those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

They are meeting volunteers, local residents and community representatives at the Westway Sports Centre, near the charred remains of the building in west London.

On Thursday the Queen paid tribute to the “bravery” of firefighters who battled the fire and praised the “incredible generosity” of volunteers offering their support.

Earlier the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, also visited the centre after pledging to meet residents.

Javid leaves following a visit to the Westway Sports Centre.
Javid leaves following a visit to the Westway Sports Centre. Photograph: David Mirzoeff/PA

Updated

Queen visits the scene

The Queen looks set to beat the prime minister in meeting some of the victims.

She has arrived at the scene and has begun talking to volunteers and members of the emergency services at Westway sports centre.

The Queen’s visit challenges Downing Street’s line that the prime minister couldn’t meet some of those involved because of security concerns.

It has been confirmed that Theresa May will visit some of the victims in hospital later today.

The Queen and the Duke of Cambridge arrive to meet members of the community affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower
The Queen and the Duke of Cambridge arrive to meet members of the community affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Photograph: David Mirzoeff/PA

Updated

Sawsan Choucair is missing six members of her family who all lived on the 22nd floor of Grenfell Tower.

She stood at the tribute wall at Latymer community church, talking to as many reporters as she can. Choucair said she is “devastated” and is desperate for information from the authorities, which she said has been lacking to non-existent.

She is missing her mother Sirria; her sister Nadir; her brother-in-law Bassem; her 14-year-old niece Mirena; her 11-year-old niece Fatima and her three-year-old niece Zienab.

Choucair lived on a lower floor in the tower but was at a friend’s home when the fire broke out. “I was panicking, shaking when I found out,” she said.

We don’t have any information. No one is giving us information. We all need people to inform us. We’re just hoping we get information. The only people helping are the media who are interviewing me. I’m not here to blame anyone, my main concern is my family.

Choucair said despite facing the worst possible scenario, “I still have some hope”. Posters of her missing loved ones have been plastered on the church and at other key venues around the cordon.

Updated

PM to visit victims in hospital

The BBC reports that Theresa May plans to visit some of those injured in the blaze on a hospital visit this morning.

The report comes after mounting criticism of the prime minister for her failure to meet residents during her low-key visit to the scene on Thursday.

Updated

Leadsom heckled

The leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, was heckled and challenged by residents as she visited the scene today.

She was being interviewed by Sky News about why Theresa May failed to meet residents on her visit. A man then shouted: “Meet the victims.”

The man praised Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan for talking to residents on Thursday.

He added: “You know this could have been stopped, a long, long time ago. There is basic stuff, there’s not even sprinklers in there. That could have cost £200,000. They had £10m to spend, they spent £8.6m where is the rest of the money .. We want answers now. Nothing has been done.”

Another man challenged her about the government’s failure to act on warnings after the 2009 fire at Lakanal House.

Leadsom said she understood the anger. She said “the prime minister is trying to get a grip on this”.

Andrea Leadsom challenged on visit to Grenfell Tower

Updated

A serious fire in an empty Frankfurt high rise in 2012 where the polystyrene content in the cladding was seen as having exacerbated the blaze led to the fire brigade there starting a documentation of similar fires involving the same cladding across Germany.

The resulting 30-page document is incomplete because fire brigades were not obliged to participate, but between 2001 and 2017, 100 such fires were documented.

On 24 December 2005, there was a fire in Cologne on the second floor of a tower block that had started in a flat and quickly spread to the cladding. The strong smoke fumes killed four people living two floors above, and one person living in the flat.

The use of a material called HBCD, which had typically been used for cladding in combination with polystyrene to make it less flammable, was banned in Germany more or less outright in the spring of 2016 because of the poisonous dioxin fumes that are emitted when it burns.

Updated

Survivor Christos Fairbairn has told of how he tripped over bodies after he escaped from the 14th floor. He told the BBC:

I could feel myself tripping over in the dark. I was tripping over bodies. On one of the floors I tripped badly and fell, as I looked up I saw the face of a dead man.

I can still picture him now.

As I got to the third or fourth floor I was choking and couldn’t breathe. I started to feel faint. I collapsed and that’s when I felt a firefighter grab me.

I went to hospital and was treated for smoke inhalation. I had so much poison in my lungs. I was crying and having flashbacks.

Now I am left with nothing and have nowhere to live. But the council have paid for a room for me in Earl’s Court in London where I am staying now.

Updated

Berlin’s fire chief is calling on tighter fire regulations as a result of the London fire for tower blocks as well as other types of housing. Wilfried Gräfling said in future only mineral materials should be permissible for the cladding of buildings.

“We will try to persuade lawmakers that flammable material should no longer be allowed to be used as an insulant, only mineral material that can’t burn, ensuring that it’s no longer possible for a fire to spread via the cladding,” he told Der Spiegel.

Updated

Twelve people still in critical care

The latest figures from NHS England show that 24 people are still being treated in hospitals across London, of whom 12 remain in critical care.

The German authorities have been saying that a fire like Grenfell Tower could not happen in Germany.

The head of Frankfurt’s fire service has been particularly vocal in saying that he’s appalled about the London fire, and that tight guidelines governing the fire safety of tower blocks in Germany mean such a fire could not happen there.

Germany is deemed to have the tightest fire regulations for tower blocks of any European country.

There are thousands such blocks in Germany, particularly in ex-communist parts of the country where they were the commonest form of housing for decades. In cities like Berlin they have once again become fashionable places to live particularly due to a growing housing shortage and a rise in the cost of real estate.

According to the guidelines introduced in the 1980s, the type of cladding used at Grenfell Tower is not allowed on buildings higher than 22 metres in Germany.

Reinhard Ries, Frankfurt’s fire chief, has said that other European countries “used to laugh at Germany for this”, but he added: “I think we can almost be a little bit proud of this.”

He said that 22 metres was the limit, because a fire brigade’s turntable ladders cannot go higher than that.

Above that height, people have to be able to escape via so-called safety stairs, which are separate from the rest of the tower block structure, he said.

A spokesman for the Berlin fire service, Thomas Kirstein, said there also had to be an internal firefighters’ lift so that the fire brigade could effectively fight the fire from inside the building. This enables the fire brigade to get to one floor beneath a fire and from there they can tackle it better. Next to the firefighters’ lift is a room where hose pipes can be connected to the water supply.

Following the London fire, the Association for the Promotion of German Fire Safety (Vfdb) has ordered the renewed inspection of all buildings in Germany, whether tower blocks or other types, that are over a certain age.

Many of these, they say, are not fitted with sprinkler systems or firefighting equipment. The association has also called for unified international standards governing fire safety in buildings.

Updated

Mohammed Alhajali
Mohammed Alhajali

Thousands of people have signed a petition to get the family of two Syrian refugees affected by the Grenfell fire to the UK.

Mohammed Alhajali, 24, an engineering student who fled Syria three years ago, was the first victim to be identified. He died in the blaze, while his older brother Omar, 25, was taken to hospital after escaping.

An online petition is now calling for the government to grant an emergency visa to allow the brother’s parents to come to UK to attend Mohammad’s funeral and visit Omar in hospital.

The brothers, along with other members of their family reportedly came to Britain from southern Syria three years ago and were given asylum in Britain. The petition page said Mohammed’s last words to his brother were: “The smoke is getting in, the smoke is getting in, we are going to die, we are going to die.”

The page, set up by Mirna Ayoubi, reads: “His parents have applied for an emergency visa to visit Omar their son in hospital and attend their son Mohammad’s funeral. Please help us collect as many signatures as possible to get them to the UK.”

Over 4,000 supporters from around the world have already signed to show their support, leaving dozens of messages.

Syria Solidarity Campaign director Kareen El Beyrouty has launched a campaign towards funeral costs.

The appeal said: “Mohammed Alhajali undertook a dangerous journey to flee war in Syria, only to meet death here in the UK, in his own home. His dream was to be able to go back home one day and rebuild Syria.”

Updated

The London fire brigade continues to use sniffer dogs and drones to search the burnt-out and unstable Grenfell Tower.

On Thursday, fire commissioner Dany Cotton said a full search could not take place until firefighters and the local authority had built structures to shore up the tower so it was safe to enter.

Updated

More than 70 people are believed to be unaccounted for since the blaze, according to the Press Associaiton.

Six bodies have been recovered from the gutted 24-storey tower, while 11 have been located inside but cannot yet be removed.

Metropolitan police commander Stuart Cundy responded to speculation that the number of dead could exceed 100, saying: “For those of us that have been down there, it’s pretty emotional, so I hope it is not triple figures, but I can’t be drawn on the numbers.”

More appeals were put up overnight on Thursday as relatives became increasingly distraught about their loved ones.

A burnt-out flat inside of the Grenfell Tower.
A burnt-out flat inside of the Grenfell Tower. Photograph: Declan Wilkes/PA

Updated

Geoff Wilkinson, managing director of Wilkinson Construction Consultants, has a list of 20 key questions that the Grenfell fire investigation needs to ask.

Updated

Former housing minister evades questions

Gavin Barwell, who was housing minister before losing his seat in last week’s general election and is now the prime minister’s chief of staff, has ducked questions about his failure to act on warnings about fire safety in the wake of the Lakanal House fire in 2009.

Barwell refused to answer Sky News questions over why he delayed a review into tower block fire safety.

Barwell told the Commons last October that part B of the building regulations, which cover fire safety, would be reviewed as part of a process following a coroner’s 2013 report into the fire.

Barwell said: “We have not set out any formal plans to review the building regulations as a whole, but we have publicly committed ourselves to reviewing part B following the Lakanal House fire.” However, since then his department has not published any review.

He refused to answer questions on Sky News as he walked down Whitehall on his way to work in Downing Street on Friday morning.

Updated

Javid was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he and his four children could sleep easy in a building like Grenfell Tower in the wake of the fire.

“Any human being would be worried … about their families,” he acknowledged.

“There will be emergency inspections of all similar buildings across the country. The work has started now,” Javid added repeating a point he made to BBC News (see earlier).

But Javid also appeared to concede that the government had failed to act on previous fire warnings.

“If enough had been done, this shouldn’t have happened, and that’s why we need to find out what exactly has happened here,” he said.

Asked about the coroners’ recommendations after six people died at Lakanal House in 2009, Javid said:

This is why we need a public investigation. My predecessor responded to that report publicly about how they [the recommendations] would be actioned. The coroner did not recommend new planning regulations. The coroner recommended a change in the guidance. There is a lot of information out there and it is right that it is independently looked at by a judge-led inquiry.”

Updated

There’s an eerie quiet around Grenfell Tower this morning. There’s little sign of the police and firefighter presence that filled the streets just two days ago as emergency services fought to control the flames and cope with hundreds of displaced residents.

The blackened wreck of the tower looms behind Latymer Community church, which was used as a relief centre in the aftermath of the fire.

The church is plastered with “missing” posters appealing for information for family and friends not seen since the fire took hold (see earlier).

Children, adults, whole families feature in the heartbreaking array of appeals. One side of the church has become a makeshift tribute wall where people have written hundreds, possibly thousands, of messages to the missing, the deceased and their relatives expressing love and sympathy.

Flowers have been laid outside nearby Notting Hill Methodist church, where many “missing” posters can also be found.

Updated

Harriet Harman, the Labour MP whose constituency includes Lakanal House in south London where six people were killed in 2009, has urged the prime minister to invite residents to Downing Street after failing to meet them during Thursday’s low-key visit.

Updated

Dozens of appeals for missing people have been made on the side of the Latymer community church in the tower’s shadow. Here’s a selection:

Updated

The Sun has listed 65 people who it said were still missing or feared dead in the Grenfell Tower fire, which police said has killed 17 people with the death toll expected to rise.

Updated

Campaigners are planning to protest outside Javid’s Communities department on Marsham Street in central London at 6pm tonight.

They will be demanding “Justice for Grenfell”.

Sajid Javid pledges to meet survivors

Sajid Javid
Sajid Javid Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Communities secretary Sajid Javid has pledged to meet survivors of the tragedy when he visits the scene today after the prime minister was criticised for avoiding residents during her trip on Thursday.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast Javid defended the prime minister’s controversial low key visit. He said: “The prime minister went yesterday. I think it was absolutely right to do so – to go as quickly as she could, but to learn about the operation and to discover if there is anything more that the government could be doing to help.”

But he acknowledged the need for ministers to visit those caught up in the fire. He said: “I will be going along today and I will be visiting one of the centres, because one of the areas that my department is involved in is trying to make sure the council is helped in anyway it can. I want to make sure that everyone that needs to be rehoused, first of all has the right quality local temporary accommodation, but I also want to make sure that they have permanent accommodation somewhere local.”

He added: “I want to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to help.”

Asked about the number of people missing in the fire, Javid said: “They [the police] are preparing the country for further fatalities, but I don’t have any more information at this point.”

Javid confirmed that the government has launched an emergency fire review of high rise blocks to reassure residents living in similar accommodation. It will identify which blocks have been reclad in material similar to that used at Grenfell Tower. He said:

We have to be led by the experts in this. This will be done in a matter of days. Those people need to be given reassurance within days. There are about 4,000 high-rise buildings in the country, but not all of them have been recladded. Let’s not make the assumption it is all about cladding. As soon as we have more information, which we expect later today, or certainly over the weekend, then that is what should be used to do these emergency inspections. We will do whatever it takes to make those buildings safe or make those people safe.

But Javid dodged questions about where residents in tower blocks with similar cladding would be evacuated. “We have to be led by the evidence,” he said.

He also gave vague answers about whether the government would retrofit sprinkler systems to tower blocks. “I don’t think we can immediately jump to the conclusion that sprinklers is the issue here,” he said adding “we will do whatever it takes”.

“Right now in the short term, no one wants to wait months or years for a public inquiry to end, we need the fire inspection report, and we need it quick so it can be acted on.

Updated

Police have warned they may never be able to identify all of the people who died in the fire as a growing list of those missing indicates that the official death toll misrepresents the scale of the tragedy.

The names of dozens of people missing in the fire have been circulating online amid mounting anger about the time it is taking to confirm the identities of those killed.

So far the official death toll stands at 17, a figure that police acknowledge is likely to rise significantly.

The pop star Lily Allen, who lives and grew up in the area, accused officials of trying to “micromanage people’s grieving” after hearing unconfirmed reports that the eventual death toll could be as high as 150.

Speaking to Channel 4 News she said: “I have never in my entire life seen an event like this were the death count has been downplayed by the mainstream media.”

Updated

Dawn Foster has written about how providing scrutiny of local and national decisions on housing is one way to help the victims of the fire.

Of paramount importance is keeping up the pressure on the local council to ensure and promise that those who have lost everything in the blaze are housed permanently, and equally importantly, locally.

Read more here:

The Guardian’s cartoonist Steve Bell has this take on the fire:

Steve Bell’s Grenfell fire cartoon
Steve Bell’s Grenfell fire cartoon Illustration: Steve Bell

Updated

Residents 'did not want sprinklers' – council leader

Sprinklers were not fitted during the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower because residents did not want the prolonged disruption it would have caused, the leader of the council responsible for the block has claimed.

Nick Paget-Brown, the Tory leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, said there was not a “collective view” among residents in favour of sprinklers.

Experts have suggested that sprinklers could have been fitted in the 24-storey building for £200,000 during the £10m refurbishment.

Asked if installing sprinklers was considered as part of the refurbishment, Paget-Brown said the advice was that the best way to combat the spread of a fire was to contain it.

He told BBC2’s Newsnight: “I didn’t consider retrofitting sprinklers because we were told that what you try to do when you are refurbishing is to contain a fire within a particular flat so that the fire service can evacuate that flat, deal with the fire.

“There was not a collective view that all the flats should be fitted with sprinklers because that would have delayed and made the refurbishment of the block more disruptive.

“We are now talking retrospectively after the most enormous tragedy, but many residents felt that we needed to get on with the installation of new hot water systems, new boilers and that trying to retrofit more would delay the building and that sprinklers aren’t the answer.”

But he said: “Of course I regret anything that we might have done differently that would have avoided this tragedy.”

The British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association has put the cost of installing a sprinkler system at £200,000.

Paget-Brown was unable to say how many tower blocks in his borough lacked sprinkler systems.

Amid speculation that the cladding fitted to Grenfell Tower could have been a factor in the fatal blaze, Paget-Brown said no other refurbishments in the borough would use the system.

“As far as I know there are no other towers with that cladding,” he said. Asked if the borough would use similar components on towers in the future, he said: “No.”

He added: “We have asked the London fire brigade to look at all our towers and give us a report on whether fire safety in all of the towers – because we are very conscious residents are worried about this – whether they can give us the assurance that we need that all of those towers are safe and that they comply with fire standards, fire regulations.”

Updated

Justice for Grenfell rally

The Press Association reports that people are planning a rally in Westminster on Friday to call for justice for those caught up in the Grenfell Tower fire.

A Facebook event, Justice for Grenfell!, has been listed as taking place at 6pm on Friday outside the Department for Communities and Local Government in Marsham Street, with more than 1,000 people said to be attending.

The posting said: “At least 12 people have died in the fire at Grenfell Tower. They deserve justice. We demand answers .

“Solidarity with the residents of Grenfell Tower.”

Lynsey Hanley writes for the Guardian that our housing cannot continue to be subject to the market’s desires, needs or fluctuations.

If some housing is regarded as being more valuable, more desirable, corners will always be cut in the places where there is less financial return. The same goes for people: the most disadvantaged always suffer most from the mistakes of the powerful.

You can read more here:

As well as Michael Portillo, Harriet Harman has also criticised Theresa May for staying away from locals and victims of the fire when she visited the scene yesterday.

Labour’s former deputy leader said it was “not OK” for the prime minister to go to the area but not meet residents.

In a message on Twitter, Ms Harman said: “Theresa May should have met Grenfell Fire residents. She should have been prepared to listen to them Not OK to speak at them via TV.”

Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower.
Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire.
A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters
People look at photographs of missing persons in a phone box near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower.
People look at photographs of missing persons in a phone box near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

The BBC has an interview with former cabinet minister Michael Portillo who has criticised Theresa May for failing to meet with victims and survivors of the fire. Portillo said the prime minister “didn’t use her humanity”.

He told BBC’s This Week: “She met in private with the emergency services, a good thing to do no doubt, but she should have been there with the residents, which is what Jeremy Corbyn was.

“She wanted an entirely controlled situation in which she didn’t use her humanity.
“The Prime Minister would have been shouted at by the residents, but she should have been willing to take that.”

Updated

What the papers say

For the second day the British newspapers have little on their fronts other than the terrible events at Grenfell Tower.

The Sun goes with “Now the Anger” and says some people had turned on London mayor Sadiq Khan and TV presenter Jon Snow at the scene.

The Mirror has the one word in its headline: “Criminal” and says the tragedy is one that “shames our nation”.

The Mail decides to float the question: “Were green targets to blame for fire tragedy?” and asks whether “dubious” insulation was put on the tower just to meet environmental standards.

The Guardian has the news that police fear some of the victims of the fire may never be formally identified and that the retrieval of their bodies could take months, such is the destruction in the building.

The Times has a now much discussed detail that the US had banned the type of cladding that was allegedly used on the 24-storey tower block.

The FT does have a picture of the commemoration wall for the Grenfell Tower but leads on interest rates staying put at record lows, saying there are fears that weak retail sales are signalling a prolonged slowdown in the British economy.

Updated

Hello and welcome

Hello and welcome to today’s blog about the aftermath of the devastating Grenfell Tower fire. Thank you for joining us. Here is a summary of the latest news:

  • Scotland Yard have launched a criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire after it emerged that cladding panels similar to those likely to have been used on the 24-storey building have been widely prohibited on tall buildings in the US since 2012.
  • The prime minister Theresa May has also set up a public inquiry into the fire.
  • The official death toll stands at 17, but is expected to rise.
  • Police says six people have so far been provisionally identified, but no details have been given.
  • A total of 30 people are being treated in six London hospitals. Fifteen are in a critical condition.
  • Police have said that some of the dead from the blaze may never be identified, as officers warned that the painful process of retrieving the victims could take months.
  • Among those still missing are entire families, a six-month-old baby, a young Italian couple, and a five-year-old boy who lost hold of an adult’s hand as his family struggled through thick smoke to escape the blaze.
  • A charity inundated by donations has urged the public to stop sending clothes, food and other items for victims of the fire, asking that monetary donations be made instead.
  • Residents of high-rise flats run by the same organisation that ran Grenfell Tower have spoken of concerns for their safety.
  • May has addressed criticism that she did not meet survivors of the fire during a visit to the area, saying she wanted a briefing from the emergency services.
  • The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has suggested vacant houses in Kensington & Chelsea should be requisitioned on behalf of people left homeless by the fire.
  • Liberal Democrats have called for the cladding used on Grenfell Tower to be banned in the UK.
  • Writing in the Guardian, David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said that arrests and prosecutions should follow the deadly blaze.
  • It appears to be firming up that Mohamed Alhajali, one of the missing, has died. The Syrian Solidarity Campaign Facebook page is raising money for his funeral.
  • A rally will be held on Friday evening in Westminster calling for justice for those caught up in the fire.

Updated

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