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- Behailu Kebede raised the alarm as the Grenfell Tower inferno began to spread, his neighbours have said
- Father of one, a taxi driver from Ethiopia, discovered the fire in his fourth floor kitchen ahead of blaze
- Mr Kebede banged on a neighbour’s door and alerted her to the fire, potentially saving many lives
- Tower block resident Maryam Adam said he knocked on her door to warn her at 12.50am on Tuesday night
- At 12.54am, a resident called 999 and the first engines arrived at the scene in west London within six minutes
- After 15 minutes, most of the tower was alight, 30 minutes later the building was engulfed in flames
This is the mini-cab driver whose faulty fridge is alleged to have started the Grenfell Tower inferno.
Behailu Kebede, a father of one, raised the alarm after flames took hold in his flat at number 16 on the fourth floor.
Maryann Adam, 41, who lived at number 14, told how Mr Kebede banged on her front door in the early hours of Wednesday to tell her that there was a fire in his kitchen.
She said: ‘He knocked on the door, and he said there was a fire in his flat. It was exactly 12.50am because I was sleeping and it woke me up.
‘The fire was small in the kitchen. I could see it because the flat door was open. There was no alarm.’
Raised alarm: Behailu Kebede, a father of one, pictured, whose faulty fridge started the Grenfell Tower inferno and raised the alarm, a neighbour claims
Faulty fridge: Mr Kebede, pictured, banged on his neighbour’s door, potentially saving hundreds of lives – after flames took in the kitchen of his fourth floor flat
Firefighters were still damping down the building today. It was deemed unsafe for them to enter until experts have assessed it
The 27-storey Grenfell building, which was built in 1974 but refurbished last year, has an average of six flats per floor lived in by council tenants and a smaller number of private owners or tenants – fire had largely engulfed it in around 15 minutes
Mr Kebede friend Eshete Meried said the 44-year-old taxi driver originally from Ethiopia, escaped the building – but was still in shock.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Mr Meried said: ‘Behailu did raise the alarm, that is what I am hearing.
‘He is fine but he is not in a position to talk about anything right now. I understand that he in a temporary shelter, staying with friends.’
Another friend said Mr Kebede had spoken to police who are investigating the fire.
Maryam left her phone with her belongings in her flat and has been unable to check on other residents. She later attended the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital after feeling dizzy, but was given the all-clear.
Speaking today from emergency accommodation close to the scene of the disaster, Mr Kebede told of his distress at witnessing the very beginning of the inferno, which it is feared to claimed more than 100 lives.
He told MailOnline: ‘I am very upset’. Asked whether the fire started in his flat by MailOnline Mr Kebede replied: ‘I’m busy, I’m busy. Goodbye.’
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Mr Kebede’s identity emerged today as:
- The official death toll was raised to 17, but is expected to soar as rescuers piece their way through the ruined flats where more than 400 people were living when the fire ripped through.
- Prime Minister Theresa May visited the site and ordered a full public inquiry into the blaze after it was claimed ministers were warned over the cladding suspected to have helped the fire spread.
- Two young girls, part of a family of five who lived on the tower’s 20th floor, were found by relatives in a London hospital. Their mother, father and six-month-old baby sister are still missing.
- Three generations of one family are missing after three girls, a mother and father and grandmother were caught up in the blaze.
- Bosses of the company running the building and those who carried out recent refurbishment work were challenged to explain whether new cladding led it to go up ‘like a firelighter’ in around 15 minutes.
- More than £1 million has been raised to help those affected by the fire, while volunteers and charities have helped feed and shelter people who could not return to their homes.
- The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, who live in the London borough, donated to the fund set up to help those affected, and the Queen offered her condolences to victims’ families.
Dozens of residents at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, West London, are feared dead — just a year after a £10million refurbishment of the block that developers said was safe.
Saved lives: Mr Kebede, pictured on holiday, would have saved lives by alerting his pregnant neighbour Maryann Adam, 41, that a fire had started in his flat at number 16
Prime Minister Theresa May visited the site of the burnt-out building this morning before ordering a full public inquiry
Rescue workers have reached the top floor of the building, but have been unable to enter any flats or rooms, because the structure is so unstable
Experts suspect cladding added to the outside of the 1970s tower block may have helped the fire spread so quickly
Chaos and confusion hit the block as the fire began in Mr Kebede’s and quickly took hold. It reached the top floor of the 27-story block within just 15 minutes.
Witnesses watched helplessly as people trapped in smoke-filled flats took it in turns to suck breaths of air through windows designed to open only fractionally.
Trapped residents flashed torches, their mobile phones and even fairy lights from their windows in a desperate attempt to attract the attention of rescuers.
One witness said: ‘People were taking it in turns to get air from the window, and flashing their phones, and then the fire just took them.
‘You could hear people yelling from the top, ‘Help, get my children out!’ and you are just standing there, and watching people die, burning…’
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A body wrapped up in a blanket, obscured by MailOnline, lies in the ground floor of the White City tower block largely destroyed by fire over night
It is believed the first five people to be confirmed dead were those who had jumped or fallen.
One resident wept as he described how people ‘just threw their kids out, screaming ‘save my children’.’ Another said his mother stepped over a dead body to escape the building.
One man claimed he saw a child who was on fire leap from the 22nd floor, adding: ‘He walked to the window, and he jumped.’
It emerged today that a six-month-old baby is among the missing. The baby girl’s mother, Farah Hamdan, and father, Omar Belkadi, have also not been seen since the fire but her older sisters, eight-year-old Malek Belkadi and Tamzin, six, were found in a London hospital.
A family of six are also missing after they were caught up in the blaze. Relatives are searching for Nadia, 29, and Bassem Choucair, 38, their three young girls, Mierna, 13, Zaynab, ten, and Fatima, three, and grandmother Sirra.
Five-year-old Isaac Shawo was also lost as his family tried to flee their 18th floor flat. He was holding the hand of a neighbour but disappeared as his parents and brother Luca, three, stumbled down a fire escape.
Little Tamzin Belkadi, six, (left) and her older sister Malek (right) have been located in a hospital by relatives after their family went missing in the Grenfell Tower fire
Isaac Shawo has been missing since his family fled their 18th floor flat. It is feared he got lost in the thick smoke
Mierna, 13, Zaynab, ten, and Fatima Choucair, three, are missing along with their mother Nadia (right), father Bassem Choucair and grandmother Sirra
The death toll from the devastating tower block fire in west London is expected to rise as investigators trawl through the wreckage in the search for other victims.
At least 12 people have died after the huge fire destroyed Grenfell Tower in north Kensington, where flames could still be seen burning more than a day on from the disaster.
More than £1 million has been raised to help those affected as fire tore through the 24-storey building while volunteers and charities helped with feed and shelter people who could not return to their homes overnight.
Mahad Egal sobbed as he described children being thrown from the building
A wall of condolence was put up near the scene with photographs showing dozens of messages left for loved ones.
Prime Minister Theresa May has promised a ‘proper investigation’ after the building went up in flames early on Wednesday morning amid growing concerns about how the fire could have spread so rapidly.
Speaking in Downing Street, Mrs May said: ‘When it’s possible to identify the cause of this fire, then of course there will be proper investigation and if there are any lessons to be learnt they will be, and action will be taken.’
Residents’ groups have claimed they voiced concerns about the safety of the building, which had been recently refurbished, while those who escaped complained their fire alarms had not been set off by the blaze.
One focus for the investigation will be the building’s cladding, which TV architect George Clarke said may have accelerated the blaze.
Mr Clarke, who lives locally and appears on Channel 4’s Amazing Spaces, told BBC’s Newsnight: ‘ I saw those cladding panels, the cladding on the outside and the insulation was just peeling off, like you’d peel a banana.
‘It was fully on fire. I could see the flames behind – there’s a new cladding system put on the outsides that looks like a new skin, there’s an air gap an insulation behind that, to me that looks like a fantastic chimney for the fire to rage around.’
Grenfell Tower, which built in 1974, was recently refurbished at a cost of £8.6 million, with work completed in May last year.
Kensington and Chelsea Council admitted it had received complaints over the works, after a residents’ action group said its warnings about safety had fallen on ‘deaf ears’.
A blog post from Grenfell Action Group in November said ‘only a catastrophic event’ would expose the concerns residents had.
Pictures of the tower today show the burnt-out flats on the upper floors, which are now blackened hulks with little left intact
The remains of a family’s kitchen table and chairs were visible through the burned out walls of one of the flats today
Shocking footage has emerged of the debris-strewn hallway inside the building, where bodies were seen laying on the floor
London fire chief Dany Cotton said full searches of the upper floors, where no one is said to have survived, are yet to be carried out. Parts of it will need to be shored up before rescue workers can enter.
She told reporters: ‘Tragically now we are not expecting to find anyone else alive. The severity and the heat of the fire would mean it is an absolute miracle for anyone to be left alive.’
Describing the situation inside the tower this morning, fire chief Ms Cotton said: ‘Some of the internal structures are not regarded as safe at the moment, however the central core is, so my firefighters have been up to the top floor last night, they have done the initial brief search from the doorways.’
‘So although we’ve been up there we haven’t managed to do a comprehensive search and until we can make the building safe then I really don’t want to risk the safety of my firefighters at this moment in time,’ she added.
Ms Cotton said structural surveyors and urban search and rescue specialists would inspect the building on Thursday and once it was declared safe a full search would take place.
Search and rescue dog teams will then go through the building first before experts carry out a ‘painstaking’ fingertip search of the building which may take weeks, Ms Cotton said.
Faces of the missing: Desperate relatives search for information about scores of residents caught up in fire
Relatives and friends of the scores of Grenfell Tower residents who are missing are desperately searching hospitals for them and appealing for information.
It is feared scores of residents died when flames engulfed Grenfell Tower in the early hours of yesterday. Those who escaped the blaze have been left trying to find out if relatives, friends and neighbours managed to get out.
Among those missing include a family with three young girls, a friend of an MP, a woman who sent a friend a Snapchat video of the blaze at 3am, and another resident told by a firefighter to remain in her flat with her son.
Family say engineering student Mohammad Alhajali died in the blaze. Jessica Urbano (centre) is among the missing. Her cousin is trying to find her. Family members are also trying to find Dennis Murphy (right)
Italian couple Gloria Trevisan and Marco Gottardi lived on the 23rd floor of the tower block and had been in London for three months. Khadija Saye (right), who lives on the 20th floor of Grenfell Tower in west London is also among those who are currently missing. Farah Hamdan and her six-month-old baby (right) are among the missing, along with Ms Hamdan’s husband Omar Belkadi
Mariem Elgwahry (pictured) has not been seen by friends since 2am yesterday morning. Mirna, Fatima and Zainab Choucair (centre) are said to have been in the building with their mother, Nadia (right), father Bassem and grandmother Sirra
Worried relatives are appealing for information on Ali Yawar (left), Nurhuda El-Wahabi (centre) and Yasin El-Wahabi (right)
Saber Neda (left), who lived on the top floor, is feared dead. Mo Tuccu (centre) has not been seen and there are fears for Sheila Smith
Rania Ibrham and her daughters are missing, as is Mary Mendy, who lived on the 20th floor, and Iranian Hamid Kani (right)
Zainab Dean (left) lived on the 14th floor along with her son Jeremiah, 2 (centre). Hesham Rahman (right) lived on the 20th floor
Tony Disson, 66, (left) was last in contact with his family at 3am and still inside the building. Steve Power (centre) is also thought to be missing, as is Fathaya Alsanousi (right) was stuck in her 23rd floor flat with her son Abu Feras, 38, and daughter Esra Ibrahim, 35.
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