Grenfell Tower Death Toll Rises to 17; U. K. Government Is Criticized -<br />By DAN BILEFSKYJUNE 15, 2017<br />LONDON — With the death toll from a horrific London fire rising and many residents still unaccounted for, Prime Minister Theresa May — under pressure from critics — on Thursday ordered a formal inquiry into the disaster<br />that turned an apartment tower into a smoldering ruin.<br />“The only alarm that went off was my neighbor’s smoke alarm,” said Eddie Daffarn, a 16th-floor resident and member of the Grenfell Action Group.<br />“We realize that a lot of people are still incredibly concerned about their loved ones who are still unaccounted for<br />and our priority is to do the best for those waiting for news of their relatives and friends,” the London Fire Brigade commissioner, Dany Cotton, said in a statement on Thursday.<br />And should older buildings — Grenfell Tower was completed in 1974 — have to be retrofitted with sprinklers and alarm systems?<br />A residents’ association, the Grenfell Action Group, had complained for years<br />that concerns about fire hazards in Grenfell Tower were ignored by the building’s owner — the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea — and by the company the borough council hired to manage it.<br />“If you have good fire resistance between flats, there is less risk if you stay in place than if everyone runs out of the<br />building at the same time,” Sian Berry, chairwoman of the Housing Committee of the London Assembly, said in an interview.
