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London (CNN)London's fire chief has warned that it could take weeks to identify all the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, such is the devastation caused by the blaze.
A day after the devastating fire in North Kensington, firefighters were still working to dampen the blaze and search for remains of the dead. Police said the confirmed number of deaths had reached 17.
Dany Cotton, London's fire commissioner, said she had "genuinely" no idea about how many people were still missing. She also admitted that it we be an "absolute miracle" if there was still anyone alive in the tower and that it would take "weeks" to complete a proper search with the building still unstable.
On Thursday, Labour Member of Parliament David Lammy called for arrests to be made over the fire, describing the incident as "corporate manslaughter."
Latest developments
- Final death toll still unknown, no number put on missing
- Residents who escaped were offered housing overnight
- Local council says it has enough donations for the survivors
- 37 people in hospital, 17 of which are critical
- British Prime Minister Theresa May visited the site Thursday
Photos: Fire engulfs apartment block in West London
Burning debris falls from the 24-story Grenfell Tower in the White City district of London as a massive fire engulfed the building early in the morning on Wednesday, June 14. London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has declared the fire a major incident as more than 200 firefighters tackle the blaze and at least 50 people are receive hospital treatment.
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Photos: Fire engulfs apartment block in West London
Smoke rises from the Grenfell Tower after a fire engulfed the building in the early morning hours.
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Photos: Fire engulfs apartment block in West London
A woman runs near paramedics working near the fire at the Grenfell Tower. At least 30 people were taken to five London hospitals but it was not clear how many were still trapped. London fire commissioner Dany Cotton said there had been a number of deaths, and the incident was unprecedented in her 29-year career.
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Photos: Fire engulfs apartment block in West London
Witnesses reported terrifying accounts of people trapped in the tower in Lancaster West Estate in North Kensington. Some people were reported to have jumped from the tower.
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A woman cries as she tries to locate a missing relative.
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Firefighters work to bring the blaze under control.
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Emergency service members work at the scene.
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Michael Paramasivan and his daughter Thea Kavanagh managed to escape the fire.
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Police stand near debris on the ground.
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People watch as Grenfell Tower is engulfed by fire on June 14 in west London.
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A security cordon holds people back as Grenfell Tower burns.
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Firefighters are battling the massive fire.
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People watch as smoke rises from the high-rise.
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Emergency personnel prepare in an open area near the fire.
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Local council leader Nick Paget-Brown said the authorities are still trying to "establish how many people have been injured or, sadly, lost their lives."
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Children wear masks that were distributed near the site of the fire.
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Smoke could be seen billowing over the heads of residents who gathered in nearby streets in West London to watch the blaze, which broke out in the early hours of the morning.
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Police officers on nearby Bradley Road asked people to step back so they could expand the cordon and make more space for emergency services.
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Residents of Whitchurch Road watch smoke streaming from the tower.
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Emergency services respond to the fire.
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Residents evacuated from nearby Barandon Walk wait outside their building. They were evacuated around 2 a.m. Police told them heat emanating from the fire could affect the structure of their building.
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Photos: Fire engulfs apartment block in West London
Witness Michael Kyriakou told CNN the fire spread quickly, with one side of the building ablaze around 15 minutes after it started. "Within an hour it had engulfed the top part of the building," he said. "There are people in bathrobes and slippers all around us, so hopefully as many as possible got out."
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The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has activated a "major emergency plan" in response to the blaze.
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Anger
British Prime Minister Theresa May visited the site of the fire on Thursday where she talked to those involved in the rescue effort.
Lammy told the BBC he had yet to hear from family friend Khadjia Saye who lived in the tower, and called the fire "an outrage".
"We built buildings in the 70s, those 70s buildings, many of them should be demolished, they haven't got easy fire escapes, they've got no sprinklers - it's totally, totally unacceptable in Britain that this is allowed to happen and people lose their lives in this way and people should be held to account."
Speaking Thursday, fire chief Cotton said that urban search and rescue dogs would be deployed inside the building.
Cotton said that while the core of the building was structurally sound, dogs were lighter and more agile than people. Her staff will remain on scene for "days to come" and that the search of the tower would be a "slow and painstaking process."
Cotton also said that parts of the building would have to be shored up in order to make it safe for rescue workers to reach each floor.
'Didn't hear fire alarms'
Questions remain over how the Grenfell Tower fire began and how it spread so quickly through the 1970s-era building that was home to as many as 500 people.
Originally constructed in 1974, the residential tower block had recently undergone a massive $13.2M (£10.3M) refurbishment carried out by private developers Rydon and completed in the summer of 2016.
According to the local authority's website, these large-scale works included the installation of "insulated exterior cladding, new double-glazed windows and a new communal heating system, with the goal of improving energy efficiency."
British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to Dany Cotton, Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade at the scene.
Notably, redevelopment of the building included provisions for improvements to the "smoke/fire safety and ventilation works."
Residents had complained about safety going back several years.
Many of those evacuated said the fire had spread incredibly quickly with almost no warning and multiple residents told CNN they did not hear fire alarms when the blaze broke out.
In November a residents group, the Grenfell Action Group (GAC), highlighted ongoing concerns among residents over the safety of the tower, managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) on behalf of the borough.
The blog post argued that only "a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord ... and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders."
KCTMO acknowledged residents' concerns in a statement. "It is too early to speculate what caused the fire and contributed to its spread. We will co-operate fully with all the relevant authorities in order to ascertain the cause of this tragedy."
"We are aware that concerns have been raised historically by residents. We always take all concerns seriously and these will form part of our forthcoming investigations."
Safety concerns
Witnesses describe horror of London fire 01:54
Many questions are still unanswered, chief among them, how the fire spread so quickly.
Wayne Brown, London Fire Brigade Deputy Assistant Commissioner, said in 25 years on the job he had "never seen a fire with that intensity spread so quickly throughout a building of this size."
Fire chiefs said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the blaze. However, residents of the tower had expressed concerns over the safety of the building, specifically pointing to fire risks, according to a website run by the Grenfell Action Group.
Ian Burgess, a professor of structural engineering at the University of Sheffield, told CNN that while fires do spread vertically up buildings, it's "generally quite a slow process."
"This was clearly a very rapid transmission of flame up the front of the building," he said.
Shock over how quickly flames engulfed building 02:42
Mike Gilmartin, director of Omega Fire Engineering, said that to meet requirements, a building must have residential sprinklers and fire alarms in every apartment, as well as other features such as a firefighting shaft.
Gilmartin said fire design has evolved over the years but it's not feasible to make all older buildings comply with the latest legislation. He added it's standard guidance that residents should stay in their apartments if a fire breaks out, as many of those in Grenfell Tower did.
"It is considered that occupants are safer in their dwelling than coming out into potentially smoke logged corridors," he said.
Community comes together
As the smoke continued to billow from the tower, locals worked hard on Thursday to help those who had been made homeless by the fire.
Messages of hope written on a poster near Grenfell Tower.
The local council had received so many donations of food and supplies that by Thursday morning it said it did not need any more.
Piles of prams, luggage, food supplies, toys and furniture could be seen stacked on the streets as mourners and well-wishers wrote messages of solidarity and hope on posters near the ruined tower.
Dozens of hotel rooms, apartments and other rooms were donated to house the survivors who saw their homes go up in smoke.
On Wednesday evening, on a street in the shadow of the burned tower, volunteers who had been working all day handed out cans of soda and bottles of water, and others spread food and plates out on a long red rug laid on the sidewalk.
"Share the food with everyone," a marshal encouraged, as local residents and those who had come to offer help sat cross-legged opposite each other as Muslim members of the diverse neighborhood broke their Ramadan fast.
"The best thing about today has been seeing how generous people are," charity worker Zain Miah told CNN.
"It doesn't matter what color skin we have, doesn't matter where we're from ... everyone is here to make sure the people who are affected, and who need help the most, have got that help."
