Death toll in London Grenfell Tower inferno increases, rescuers says unknown numbers of bodies still in the building as hundreds feared dead

Death toll in the West London Grenfell Tower inferno has increased to 17 — and the number of victims is expected to continue to rise as five more deaths were confirmed on Wednesday night, bringing the official toll to 17. But there are fears dozens more people perished when fire ravaged the apartment block during the middle of the night.


Nobody left in the London tower block which burned down on Tuesday night is still alive, fire crews have said. Rescuers say there are still 'unknown numbers' of people dead inside, but at the moment it is too risky to try to recover them from the upper floors of the fire-ravaged and unstable Grenfell Tower.

'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,' 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 as families and residents search for relatives and friends.
Dozens, possibly hundreds, of people are now feared dead. Seventy eight people were taken to hospital, with 18 fighting for lives in critical condition, after around 600 residents desperately tried to escape the flames that broke out at around 1am. 

Emergency services were expecting the number of dead to be more than 100.