The blaze that killed 72 people in Grenfell Tower in London was caused by \u201cdecades of failure\u201d by the UK government and the construction industry that allowed the 24-storey building to be wrapped in flammable cladding, a seven-year public inquiry has found. <\/p>\n
The fire began in the early hours of June 14, 2017, sparked by an electrical fault in a refrigerator on the fourth floor. What could have been a small house fire instead turned into Britain\u2019s deadliest blaze since the Blitz, after the flames leapt to flammable insulation and cladding, which had been added to the tower during a major renovation the previous year. <\/p>\n
In a 1,700 page report spanning seven volumes, Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, said the \u201csystematic dishonesty\u201d of the firms that made and sold the cladding and insulation had led to the blaze. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable, and those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways, by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupied,\u201d Moore-Bick said. <\/p>\n
The report concluded that the fire was \u201cthe culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in positions of responsibility in the construction industry,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Grenfell United, which represents the survivors and bereaved families of those killed in the blaze, said the report marked \u201ca significant chapter in the journey to truth, justice and change,\u201d but \u201cjustice has not been delivered.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe inquiry report reveals that whenever there\u2019s a clash between corporate interest and public safety, governments have done everything they can to avoid their responsibilities to keep people safe,\u201d it said in a statement. \u201cThe system isn\u2019t broken, it was built this way.\u201d <\/p>\n
The inquiry had taken \u201clonger than we hoped,\u201d Moore-Bick said in a press conference, in part because it \u201cunveiled many more matters of concern than we had previously expected.\u201d <\/p>\n
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his thoughts are \u201cwholly with those bereaved by, and survivors of, the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the residents in the immediate community,\u201d according to PA. <\/p>\n
He said the new Labour government will \u201ccarefully consider the report and its recommendations, to ensure that such a tragedy cannot occur again.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The blaze that killed 72 people in Grenfell Tower in London was caused by \u201cdecades of failure\u201d by the UK government and the construction industry that allowed the 24-storey building to be wrapped in flammable cladding, a seven-year public inquiry has found. The fire began in the early hours of June 14, 2017, sparked by <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}