US 9/11 experts helping UK police to investigate Grenfell Tower fire

Experts, who helped recovering remains after the September 11 terror attack in New York, are now helping police investigating London’s Grenfell Tower fire, which in scale and complexity is comparable to 2001 attack in the US, according to UK police.

London’s deputy police commissioner, Craig Mackey, said the “extraordinary size” of the potential crime scene at the 24-story tower made it necessary to call upon experts, who worked on the aftermath of the 9/11  disaster in New York.

Mackey said it was necessary to call on American experts because they have experience of work in a “comparable” operation. "The people we’re taking advice from — which gives you an idea of the complexity — are some of the people who worked on 9/11 and the fall of the towers.”

The Grenfell Tower, home to many Muslim residents, turned to ashes after a massive fire engulfed it in the early hours of June 14 and killed at least 80 people.

Despite fears in the community that many more residents of the tower had died, Mackey said police were confident that the final death toll from the fire would not vary substantially from its current estimate.

Police have so far identified 39 bodies, but Mackey suggested the remains of many others might never be recovered.

He further said that some 200 UK police officers have been “sifting and working” through 15 tons of debris and will be working until the end of this year “to try and desperately identify parts of people so we can reunite [them with their families]."

“This is one of the most complex recovery operations we’ve seen,” said the senior officer. About 255 people are said to have survived the disaster.

In the wake of the fire, hundreds of households in north London tower blocks had been told to temporarily leave their homes to allow “urgent fire safety works” to take place.

Firefighters had said that they could not guarantee the safety of the buildings.

Now more than 100 of those evacuated from tower blocks on the Chalcots estate in Camden, refuse to return until they receive further assurances about their tower safety.

Following an initial inspection of tower blocks, Sajid Javid, Camden’s Communities and Local Government Secretary said they have found “multiple fire safety inspection failures.”

Javid also said “literally hundreds of fire doors were missing” from the north London tower blocks.

The evacuated residents are now demanding detailed documentation relating to the inspections and the reasons they were moved out in the first place.

“The residents do not want to move in on the say-so of Camden council,” said Robert Kukaj, who set up a Facebook group allowing residents to voice their concerns about this issue.

“We’ve been living for years in an unsafe place, we want an independent professional body with no ties to local authorities to make an inspection,” he added.

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