LONDON (AP) - London firefighters traumatized by the devastation they witnessed in a high-rise apartment blaze that killed at least 17 people worked Thursday to make the building safe so they could continue the search for more victims.
That death toll was up by five from the figure given on Wednesday, but authorities said many more victims were still expected.
"As the commissioner of London Fire Brigade, I was truly anxious for a long time about the safety of the building and my firefighters in there".
London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said: "There will be an investigation but at this stage I do not want to speculate about the cause of the fire or what has caused it to spread in the way that it did". "The severity and the heat of the fire will mean it would be an absolute miracle for anyone to be left alive".
More than 200 firefighters, backed up by 40 fire engines, fought for hours to try to control the blaze, London's deadliest in a generation.
A tenants' group had complained for years about the risk of a fire in the building.
The university said it did not know if the panels on them were the same as those used on the London apartment block, and it said it was very confident its fire protection measures were solid.
Metropolitan Police commander Stuart Cundy said in a televised statement yesterday: "Sadly I can confirm that the number of people that has died is now 17".
Prime Minister Theresa May visited the scene of the tragedy in west London and spoke with emergency services. Some observers asked whether hazards in the Grenfell complex, which had 120 apartments that housed as many as 600 people, were ignored because its residents are mainly poor.
Cotton told ITV that her crews had reached the top floor of the building and conducted initial visual searches from doorways but had not done a comprehensive search because it was unsafe.
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"The scene that I was confronted with was an unparalleled scene to anything I had seen before".
The fire has been burning for more than three hours and stretches from the second to the 27th floor of the building.
Grenfell Tower underwent a £10m refurbishment a year ago and new thermal cladding system installed as part of this has been pointed to as the cause of the spread of the fire. "We owe that to the families, to the people who have lost loved ones, friends and the homes in which they lived".
May faced further delays in forming her new government after a failed election gamble when her would-be allies said their agreement would be put back following the blaze.
Outside the cordons, impromptu tributes had appeared, with photos of missing people, messages of condolence, flowers and candles.
"ALL OUR WARNINGS FELL ON DEAF EARS and we predicted that a catastrophe like this was inevitable and just a matter of time", read the post.
Some residents threw a baby and other children out the window to escape the flames.
Edward Daffarn, who lived on the 16th floor, said the building's fire alarm didn't ring. Specially trained dogs were being brought in to aid the search. The news outlet says that the Grenfell building is believed to have received cladding that has a plastic core rather than a more fireproof mineral core.
Smoke was still wafting out of the shell of the Grenfell Tower on Thursday, and a Reuters cameraman saw a big piece of building cladding fall from the building.
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