I read that there was remodeling at some point which included adding some type of material to the exterior. The press might have just been guessing of course.
My heart goes out to the victims of this disaster.
Yes, if they wouldn't have been awake to alert their neighbors, the death toll would have been much higher.There may have been even more deaths, but many of the building's Muslim residents were awake to break Ramadan.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...dent-live-save-north-kensington-a7789111.html
I cannot wrap my brain around the stay safe policy. If there is a fire, especially in a high rise, my instinct would be to get as far away from the fire as quickly as possible. I don't care what the official policy was. Survival instinct would trump. And with a building that size, I think they needed more stairwells. Those poor people never stood a chance.You are right; there was cladding on the exterior aimed at insulation. It fed the fire like nothing else.
People were throwing their babies from several floors up, praying that they would at most suffer broken bones.
Amazingly, the building had a stay safe policy - in the event of a fire, residents were advised to stay put until the fire services got to them for rescue. So people on the top floors stayed put - and died.
All praises to the fore services though, on site in 6 minutes after the alarm was raised and straight into harm's way.