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Massive fire engulfs London tower block

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Huge fire engulfs London apartment block

RAW VISION: fears for residents as 200 firefighters battle a massive blaze across 27 storeys of a West London apartment block.

More than 200 firefighters spent the night tackling a massive blaze at a 27-storey block of flats in London, where a number of fatalities have been confirmed.

Forty fire engines were called to the 120-apartment Grenfell Tower, on the Lancaster West Estate, north Kensington, in the early hours of Wednesday. The estate is on Latimer Road, White City.

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London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said she was "very sad to confirm there have been fatalities. I cannot say how many at this time. The cause of the fire is not known at this time."

She said it was an "unprecedented incident". "In 25 years I have never seen anything of this scale," she said.

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Crews wearing extended breathing apparatus "have been working in extremely challenging and difficult conditions to rescue people and to bring this major fire under control", she said.

However due to the size and complexity of the building the number of fatalities could not yet be confirmed.

The Metropolitan Police said residents were being evacuated from the tower block.

The London Ambulance Service said it had taken 30 patients to five hospitals while police say a "number of people are being treated for a range of injuries", including smoke inhalation, as pictures showed flames shooting metres into the sky, engulfing most of the block.

The Guardian reported more than 200 people live in the block, which is part of a large housing estate.

CNN reported that a witness said people were jumping from the burning building.

A building resident told the BBC she woke when her son noticed fire outside the window. "We grabbed what we could - when we opened up the door we saw a lot of smoke," she said.

By the time she and her son escaped the building its entire left side was on fire "from top to bottom" she said. The woman said there had recently been works on the gas supply to the building - at Christmas half the building had lacked gas supply.

She added that the fire department had come to check the building on the weekend. "They said it was fine - it's not fine," she said. She and another resident said there had been no central fire alarm in the building.

A witness told BBC radio "It's just an inferno. I can hear people screaming, 'Help me, help me,' but the building is too big."

As dawn broke, columns of thick black smoke continued to rise from the building and ash filled the air, as firefighters tackled the blaze from the ground.

Councillor Robert Atkinson of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) told the BBC there were "people unaccounted for". Hundreds of people lived in the building, he said.

Churches, mosques and community centres in the area had opened their doors to those fleeing the blaze, he said, which had also meant it was harder to co-ordinate.

"One of the questions we will be asking is why the fire alarm system didn't work," he said. "We had received assurances that the system was looked at and it was given the all-clear. There are very serious questions to be asked as to how this could have happened."

Several residents have said they had been previously advised to stay in their apartments in case of fire.

One, Michael, told the BBC they had been told "if ever there was an outbreak of fire you must stay in the premises, they're fireproofed for up to an hour and by then you would have been rescued".

"But if we had stayed in the flat we would have perished," he said adding he had escaped in his boxer shorts through smoky corridors carrying his daughter wrapped in a dressing gown.

"Everyone was in shock, everyone was fleeing, screaming," he said.

"The block was just going up, it was like pyrotechnics, it was just unbelievable how quick it was burning."

He said it started on the fourth floor - he lived on the seventh. Once outside he could see people still in the building screaming "get me out of here". People outside were shouting at firefighters to use more water on the fire as "there are people in there burning to death". He had seen a lot of people escape, he said.

Actor and writer Tim Downie, who lives about 600 metres away, said he feared the block could collapse.

"It's horrendous. The whole building is engulfed in flames. It's gone. It's just a matter of time before this building collapses.

"I just hope they have got everyone out. People have been bringing water, clothes, anything they've got to help, out to the cordon," Downie said.

"I have seen people coming out in their bedclothes - it's just very distressing."

The London Fire Brigade said the cause of the fire was not yet known. At 6.30am local time it said 30 adjacent flats have been evacuated by police.

"We are dealing with a really serious fire that spread throughout the building," a spokesman for the fire brigade told Reuters. "The crews are doing all that they possibly can to tackle this fire."

A witness told Reuters that she feared not all the residents had escaped. Some were evacuated in their pyjamas.

Fabio Bebber wrote on Twitter: "More screams for help as the fire spreads to another side of the building.

"We can see how quick the fire spreads via the external panels. It's unbearable hearing someone screaming for their lives at #grenfelltower."

George Clarke, who presents the Channel 4 TV show Amazing Spaces, told Radio 5 Live: "I'm 100 metres away and I'm absolutely covered in ash.

"It's so heartbreaking, I've seen someone flashing their torches at the top level and they obviously can't get out.

"The guys are doing an incredible job to try and get people out of that building, but it's truly awful," he said.

He later told the BBC he was "getting covered in ash, that's how bad it is".

"I'm 100 metres away and I'm absolutely covered in ash."

Andy Moore who works for the BBC said the whole tower block was alight and there were fears the building might collapse.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan used Twitter to urge people to follow the fire brigade's account for more information on what he called the "major incident".

The Metropolitan Police said cordons were in place and advised that the estate and surrounding area should be avoided.

The police said they had closed the A40, a major road leading out of west London, to allow emergency services to access the site.

The London Ambulance service said it had dispatched 20 crews to the scene.

"Our initial priority is to assess the level and nature of the injuries an ensure those in most need are treated first and taken to hospital," it said in a statement.

BBC correspondent Simon Lederman told the broadcaster he understood "a significant number of people" were unaccounted for.

There has been a long-running dispute between some residents of the tower block and the management agency. A community organisation called the Grenfell Action Group had expressed worry about fire in the building following an earlier incident in 2013.

In November, the group said it was their "conviction ... that a serious fire in a tower block or similar high density residential property" would expose the management company's practices.

On Wednesday morning, it published a new blog post declaring in bold letters: "All our warnings fell on deaf ears" and publishing links to its previous warnings.

"Regular readers of this blog will know that we have posted numerous warnings in recent years about the very poor fire safety standards at Grenfell Tower and elsewhere in RBKC."

The group said the tower had "narrowly averted a major fire disaster ... in 2013 when residents experienced a period of terrifying power surges that were subsequently found to have been caused by faulty wiring."

The Grenfell Tower has recently undergone a €8.6million ($14.5 million) refurbishment with insulated exterior cladding, according to the Kensington and Chelsey council (RBKC). "The large scale works included the installation of insulated exterior cladding, new double glazed windows and a new communal heating system," the council website says.

It is managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation on behalf of the council.

It is too early to say whether any materials had contributed to the fire. Combustible cladding has contributed to the spread of other major high-rise fires around the world, including in Melbourne, where a polyethylene facade was found to have fuelled a blaze in an apartment building and in Dijon France, where a fire claimed the lives of seven people in 2010.

The company that refurbished the 1970s London block, Rydon, says on its website the upgrade includes "rain screen cladding, curtain wall facade and replacement windows were fitted, improving thermal insulation and modernising the exterior of the building".

"Internally, lower floor space was remodelled to incorporate extra new homes as well as a nursery, which was relocated from another part of the building. A completely new heating system was installed, which contributes to reducing living costs of residents."

Rydon's website says "resident liaison is an important part of this redevelopment and residents were actively consulted as the project progressed". The company advertises a webcam trained on the tower, but the footage does not appear to have been updated since June last year.

The council issued a series of statements on Twitter on Wednesday saying its major emergency plan had been activated and an emergency rest centre was open for evacuees. Police set up a hotline for friends and relatives worried about their loved ones.

With agencies, Nick Miller, Aisha Dow

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