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LONDON: Six people including a newborn baby died Friday in a massive fire at a tower block in London, the city's emergency services said.
"There were six fatalities -- three adults and three children," a London Fire Brigade spokesman said after the blaze in Camberwell, south London.
Witnesses gave distressing accounts of how those trapped by the fire pressed their faces up against the windows and screamed as they battled to escape the flames and smoke.
The Metropolitan Police said that those who died were a three-week-old baby, two children aged about six and seven, a woman in her 30s and two other adults.
A further 12 people were taken to hospital, many suffering the effects of smoke inhalation.
Some 30 people who had been in "immediate peril" trapped inside were rescued safely, the fire service said, adding the blaze was under control and there were no reports of people still in the block.
Around 100 firefighters were sent to the scene of the fire, which started on the fourth floor of the local authority-owned block and spread to the 11th.
Witnesses spoke of harrowing scenes as the fire, which was reported just before 4:30 pm (1530 GMT), took hold.
"There were kids screaming, there was all sorts of stuff going on," Rob Atthill told media television.
"The people I was with, they climbed on the roof to see what was happening and they could see faces of people in the windows, people were trying to smash windows, it didn't look very good." |
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