London Tower Fire: Britain's Shame Panorama

. This programme contains scenes that some viewers may find

upsetting. # It's been six days since Britain's

worst fire in living memory. They were warned several

times, countless times. They were warned probably

until the day before the fire. Panorama has been with the people

of Grenfell Tower... ...as they deal with

the worst possible news. What sort of official

support have you had? And demand to know how

could this happen? The disaster of Grenfell Tower and

why it should never have happened. It's 1am and the fire has started

in a fridge in a flat We heard a loud bang -

On the front door. Next thing we know, he's

running in telling me, It was the flat next door,

that was number 16. He grabbed the towels, wet them,

put them on the kids' heads Grenfell Tower in West London has 24

floors with up to six flats on each level,

home to around 600 people. Four floors above the fire one

resident has stayed up late. I kept on smelling like kind

of a plastic melting and I'm I saw the lights outside my window,

the flashing lights. I saw smoke and like sparks

and flames on the sixth That's when I realised

there's a fire. The fire quickly swept

around the whole building. I have a friend of mine

who lives with me. He run into my room as well

and he said, About at 1.30am, there's little sign

of panic. On the eighth floor Khalid

is the only person awake. I opened the door to look

into the corridor to see if other That's when I realised that my whole

floor was just quiet, Rather than run for his life,

Khalid starts waking his neighbours. I knocked on their door

and he opened the door. But within minutes,

the hall is full of smoke. The whole corridor just went pitch

black and it was just smoke. Higher up on the 11th floor,

Luka tries to find the staircase, I was almost unconscious,

but I knew friend of mine I couldn't leave him

in the apartment and I decide to go We took deep breath, both of us,

with the cloths on the mouth and I was trying to find the way

to the fire escape. There's loads of people standing

on the higher level... Somebody was banging

on the door from inside, We opened the door,

there was a lady, Asian She was really,

really out of control. We managed to get down,

I don't know, two floors, I ask her, can you walk,

like, we will help you, When I was out of the building,

seeing people come from other areas and scream my granddad's in there,

my dad's in there, my brother's in there, my friends are in there -

that made it 100 times worse. A ferocious fire is now ripping

through people's homes. It literally looked

like it was fizzing. I think no more than half

an hour after the flames were popping out of the window,

the whole building was immersed. On the ground, neighbours

like Joe watch in horror. I actually saw two

figures just drop. I could see their arms

and legs and stuff moving. There's someone in the top

shining his light. That was the worst part for me,

when you see people - you can actually see -

these are human beings, He's made a rope from his bed

and he's sent it down. When they jumped, when they felt

that it was just instinct and you wanted to get away

from the heat or anything like that, That is when it became

burned on my memory. Britain wakes to a disaster zone

in the heart of London. A tour block still

burning out of control. Firefighters are still

trying to get people out. And scores of people

are unaccounted for. There's very little

official information. Everywhere you go, people are

worried or searching or grieving. I heard all sort of news,

one whole family came out, Other families only

four kids came out. The smoking building sits

above the whole area. Now this is a traumatised area

because people watched it happen. We're looking at that

and the bodies are still in there. Alongside the searching

and the horror, something People go onto the streets

and start giving their time and their possessions

to those in need. Turned on the news and just

ran straight down here, We've asked the local

public to donate. As you can see, there's

been a great response. This is amazing, it seems

completely spontaneous. All these people have

come here just to help, to give what they can,

to do what they can, to volunteer. I spent 13-and-a-half years

in the London Fire Brigade. Someone's in trouble,

we'll come and help. You might expect an emergency plan,

even the army, but there only seems to be volunteers offering help

on the streets. So many people have come

around the community. How are we going to get over it,

it's a different problem. At the end of the first day

the official number of dead is 12. But those who live around the tower

know many more have been lost. But be honest in your heart,

you know the survivors from up on the top floor,

there's no-one there, is there? It's been 21 hours since Mahad

escaped from the fourth floor. Some of Mahad's friends

thought he was dead. They've just found out

he and his partner are alive. But many can't find

who they're looking for. Maria knows her brother

was near the top of the tower block My brother he lives

on the 20th floor. My mum called him at 1am

and he told her there is fire. He told her no, I called the police

and the police said to me, They asked me to put

towel on the door. He was talking but he said

he couldn't breathe from the smoke. What do you think has

happened to your brother? While we're filming,

a friend arrives with news. 3.30.

2.30? We don't know, but he

The friend spoke to Maria's brother much later in the night

and he was still trapped on the 20th floor.

One question stands out: How can a small kitchen fire in one flat

On the streets, you hear the same points being raised.

That residents were told to stay in their flats.

That there was no central fire alarm or sprinkler system.

And that the cladding on the outside of the building,

It's important to understand the way these concrete blocks were designed.

Fires are supposed to be contained in individual flats.

So you don't necessarily need sprinklers or central alarms,

because the building's fire-proof structure should give

So why didn't that happen in Grenfell Tower?

Panorama has been told by senior fire sources and residents that

firefighters did put out the initial fridge fire.

Staying put would have been the right advice.

But crucial changes had been made to the Tower's

So this building has been taken from a building where fire could not

of the building from flat to flat, to one which was a death trap.

Grenfell Tower had been covered in cladding as part

of a refurbishment a couple of years ago.

It was supposed to help insulate the building.

The cladding used was the cheaper, less fire-resistant variety.

So it's the cladding that changes everything.

That safety model doesn't work if the fire spreads

rapidly and that seems to be what happened here.

I think there are questions definitely to be asked

about the quality of cladding, there's questions about how the

cladding was applied to the building.

For example what happens if flame gets behind the cladding.

I would say it's wicked that these people have lost their lives

I knew that there would be a huge number of fatalities.

What I also knew is that I had warned about this.

It was foreseeable and these deaths are totally and utterly unnecessary.

So what's the view of the man that runs the council

Nobody designs a building that does what happened on Wednesday morning.

That is nobody's intention or expectation.

But it does happen if you don't spend the money

properly, because the design is flawed, because the material

It is banned in other countries, sir.

We will need to look at the material, at the

specification for what was done in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower,

but the council's intention at the time was to improve those homes.

The authorities had been warned about

the dangers of renovating tower blocks.

Six people were killed after a fire in a modernised building in

By 2013, the Government was promising a review of

The Parliamentary Fire Safety Group has written to the

Government about a dozen times warning lives are in danger.

The MPs say, can we really afford to wait for another tragedy?

They complain life safety implications are not considered to

be urgent and just two months ago they were still warning the

The Government acknowledged that producing a statement on building

regulations had taken longer than expected.

Today, the Government told us that it still doesn't have a

timeline for the review it promised in 2013.

Well, red tape is the sort of thing that says, you have a

To people living in a block of flats,

that's the difference between life and death.

The Government now says the cladding at Grenfell Tower was

The regulations are unclear, that's why it's still being used.

We have spent four years saying, listen, we

have got the evidence, we have provided you with the evidence,

there is clear public opinion towards this and I think you ought

The building management company and the council

who own the building didn't have to rely on official warnings.

They were told by those who live in Grenfell

In a blog six months ago, the residents predicted a disaster.

Only a catastrophic event will expose the

ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord.

The Grenfell Action Group predict that it won't be long before

the words of this blog come back to haunt KCTMO management.

They can't say that they haven't been warned.

They were warned during the regeneration.

They were warned after the regeneration.

They were warned probably until the day before the fire

They were ignored, sir, weren't they?

They said there would be a catastrophe

Sadly, there has been a catastrophe, I don't

think anybody can deny there's been a catastrophe,

but what's concerning me and the council at this stage is

first of all why the fire started and secondly why it spread

That rapid spread meant firefighters were walking into a

multi-storey inferno - a situation they had

I've never heard of an incident where people are actually

discussing the possibility that people might not come out.

Despite that, large numbers of firefighters

I know that normal procedures were broken,

Yes, they risked their lives to try and save other people's lives...

So where does this disaster leave the thousands across

the country who live in renovated flats?

If there's a fire, should they stay or run?

The Government has announced a review of all high rise

buildings, particularly those with cladding.

There are 4,000 tower blocks that were

These people have the right to live in

There is going to be some perishable food coming that needs to

You have got manpower, but ladies you would be

Over the course of the week, the volunteer army grew and grew.

By Friday, so much had been donated the

To the council, I would like to say, please, can you free up some storage

for us, because everywhere is saying we are full, we are full and

yet more people are bringing, so what do we do?

I have been here since the beginning and one of the

amazing things is the way the community has pulled together.

And spontaneously looked after itself.

What I also have to say I've seen very

Now it may be here, but I haven't seen it.

And neither have many of the local residents.

What's making us angry is that where do you see any real

If this was two weeks ago when the election

was happening, every councillor could have been down

This is the poor city and you have got the rich city.

We pay our taxes, I work, if you're paying your

taxes and you are a resident in this community, why aren't you not

You know that this the richest borough of London?

They're trying to get poor people out.

You're telling me these people if there was rich people living

there it wouldn't be put out in half an hour?

It is just poor people dying, that is what it is.

Many here do think if they were wealthy, there

And with nobody apparently taking responsibility, the Prime Minister

Presumably she has some type of a heart and soul, but

But the council is the main focus of anger.

The crowd gathers at Kensington Town Hall.

People are very angry here and truthfully this

For the first couple of days, people were just

But now people are demanding answers.

Three days since the fire, this has now

become a flash point, this door to the council

has become the focus of

They have got lots of questions, they're very angry at the people

People don't want on the whole here a confrontation, but

there is the one now at the front of this building.

Because I want to tell you, we need to be heard.

The crowd marches back to Grenfell Tower.

It takes them through some of Britain's richest streets.

What do you think of what's happening.

It was abn outrage and the terrible thing for this

community and the council don't listen to what people would say.

People want to come to our communities and divide it.

The people who died in that tower were let down by the system.

The people who survived feel that they

were let down again, because they got no help.

I'm obviously extremely upset by the scale of devastation that

took place last Wednesday morning and I support

being put into place, the inquiries that are being set up.

The latest prediction is that 79 people lost

Mahad has given up completely on support from the authorities.

I have not seen the head of Kensington

and Chelsea Housing come out to the victims and say,

The people who are responsible for the safety of Kensington and

Chelsea community are not doing enough.

Joe has been moved back into his apartment block next to

And Luka, who escaped from the 11th floor,

has been reunited with the woman he saved.

As far as I remember, a big man helped me out.

Today, the country paused to remember those who

What started as a kitchen fire, brought Britain to a halt.

A disaster that showed how the state failed to protect people and

then failed to look after those who survived.

Grenfell Tower stands as a monument to a system that simply