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Grenfell tower disaster

Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:52 pm
by Firestarter
This isn’t a false flag, but I thought that this part of the forum is most appropriate...

On the night of 13/14 June 2017, a rapidly spreading fire burned down the Grenfell Tower in London, killing at least 79 people.
This was reportedly caused by a single refrigerator.

When fire fighters were leaving the building after they had put out the initial fridge fire at Grenfell Tower, they were shocked to see flames rising up the side of the building when they came outside.
This will add weight to claims that it was the cladding on the exterior of Grenfell Tower that caused the fire to spread so rapidly.
According to, spokesman for the firemen, Dave Green:
Clearly it was a hot night and if the (fire) was fairly close to an open window then potentially the flames could have got outside - if there were net curtains, something like that, it could have got up.
Then the cladding might well have been smouldering.
As a firefighter you wouldn't have thought to look outside. We would assume that the outside of the building would not be compromised.

Before this fire, letters had been sent to ministers to warn about the fire risks for people living in high rise blocks such as Grenfell Tower.
There are an estimated 4,000 older tower blocks in the UK, without automatic sprinkler protection.
This looks like this tragedy will be used as an argument to demolish and renovate “older” buildings…

But on the other hand, a December 2015 letter by the all-party group, to former Conservative minister James Wharton, warned about the risk of fires spreading on the outside of buildings of “today’s buildings”: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06 ... ing-flats/
Today's buildings have a much higher content of readily-available combustible material. Examples are timber and polystyrene mixes in structure, cladding and insulation.
This fire hazard results in many fires because adequate recommendations to developers simply do not exist. There is little or no requirement to mitigate external fire spread.

About a year ago, the 10 million pound refurbishment of Grenfell Tower that took “66 weeks”, by Lydon, was finished.
This included the addition of flammable cladding to improve its appearance.
Almost immediately after this disaster, stories appeared that it was the cladding that made the fire uncontrollable: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 89951.html

Here’s a picture of the Grenfell Tower on fire that looks like it was the cladding (or at least something on the outside of the building) that made it uncontrollable.
Image

Here’s a video that amongst others shows people trying to get out of the burning building.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPGpHxdLMKM


Signs were hanging in the building to advice the residents to “stay put” and “stay in your flat” in case of a fire.
Image

According to the state media, in a large fire at Grenfell in 2010, the advice to “stay in your flat” saved lives.
If residents had evacuated the block at that time (2010) then 500 families fleeing would have created accidents in the stairwells etc, people would have been trampled and fire fighters attending would have been hampered by folks fleeing.


Last Friday evening, the sudden decision was made to evacuate some 4000 residents in more than 800 apartments in Camden (northwest London) from 5 towers with similar flammable cladding and insulation as Grenfell Tower.
The order caused chaos among the residents — many with no idea where they would stay.
In the days before they had been told that it was safe to stay in their houses.

Detective Superintendent McCormack said in a televised statement:
Preliminary tests on the insulation samples from Grenfell Tower show that they combusted soon after the test started.
Cladding tiles had also failed initial tests.

Georgia Gould, head of the council that made the decision, said:
I’ve made the really difficult decision of moving the people living there into temporary accommodation. I know it’s going to be difficult, but Grenfell changes everything. I just don’t believe that we can take any risks with our residents’ safety, and I just have to put them first.
Salma Derecho, 36, who lived on the 18th floor of Taplow Tower, one of the evacuated buildings, said officials suddenly knocked on her door at 9:30 PM with directions to pack enough for two to four weeks.
According Justin Fuller, a resident of one of the evacuated buildings:
This feels like a sick joke. They are playing with our minds. Yesterday they were telling us our building was safe. Now we have to pack up all our things and our small kids in the middle of the night in a state of emergency?

The Camden Council, the local assembly for that area, encouraged residents to stay with friends and family but promised to provide temporary accommodations. Repairs could take 4 weeks.
Arguably the alternative housing provided, is a bigger health hazard than their apartments…
The nearby Swiss Cottage recreation centre was hastily reconfigured as a temporary sleeping place with mattresses on the floor and the air heavy with chlorine from the swimming pool.

Safety checks are being carried out on cladding from at least 600 high-rise buildings across Britain. At least 11 buildings in the country use combustible cladding material similar to that used on Grenfell Tower.
The appliance that started the fire was a Hotpoint FF175BP refrigerator and freezer. Tests are carried out to determine if this type is a fire hazard: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/worl ... ondon.html

According to Camden Council, 83 people have refused to follow the orders to leave their homes on the Chalcots Estate: http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/24/83-reside ... e-6731132/


The following article names 8 possible causes for the Grenfell disaster: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06 ... y-inferno/
1 - Until 1986 all buildings in London fell under the London Building Acts which ensured that external walls must have at least one hour of fire resistance to prevent flames from spreading between flats or entering inside.
But under Margaret Thatcher’s government, those rules were replaced by the National Buildings Regulations and the crucial time stipulation was scrapped.
Instead, materials used on the outside of buildings now only had to meet ‘Class O’ regulations and show that they did not add to the heat or intensity of a fire. But crucially they did not have to be non-combustible.

2 - Arnold Turling said the Grenfell blaze was “entirely avoidable” and that a gap between the panels acted as a ‘wind tunnel’, fanning the flames, and allowing the fire to spread to upper levels.
Mr Turling, a member of the Association of Specialist Fire Protection, said: “Any burning material falls down the gaps and the fire spreads up very rapidly – it acts as its own chimney.”
(...)
Reynobond’s fire-resistant panel sells for £24 per square metre; £2 more expensive than the standard version.

3 - After six people died in the Lakanal House fire in south London in 2009, the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group called for a major government review of building regulations.
(...)
However, four years on and no review has been completed despite assurances from former housing minister Gavin Barwell, who is now Theresa May’s chief of staff.

4 - Residents in Grenfell Tower made repeated warnings that a single staircase was their only means of escaping the building.

5 - There was no central sprinkler system at Glenfell which members of the Fire Protection Association said would have "undoubtedly" saved lives.
MPs from All-Party Parliamentary Group Fire Safety & Rescue Group also said that MPs had been calling for sprinklers to be fitted on the outside of tall buildings for years, but said their calls been ignored.

6 - London Fire Brigade said claims that doors were not fire-proofed would form part of its ongoing inquiry.
Two separate sources have told The Telegraph that not all the front doors in the tower block were fire-proofed. Official fire brigade advice to stay put in the event of a fire is based on fire doors offering protection to residents told not to leave the building.
Fire doors are designed to stop the fire spreading rapidly through the building rather than being "compartmentalised".

7 - The refurbishment to Grenfell Tower was completed in May 2016 and yet it does not appear that any safety checks were carried out, even though the new cladding work consisted of ‘material change.’ The council did not respond to a request for comment.

8 - Fires on outside of cladded buildings should have been controlled by firebreaks - gaps in the external envelope to prevent the continual burning of material.
Under Building Regulations 1991, developers are warned that they must install systems to prevent flames from leaping from floor to floor.
However the Fire Brigades Union and the Loss Prevention Council and the Buildings Research Establishment have frequently warned that guidance is not adequate in the event of a fire.

According to the following tweet, 99% of the fire breaks were missing in Grenfell Tower: https://twitter.com/larakeller1937/stat ... 4582184963


What’s also interesting is that many people had been complaining about the quality of health and safety in the Grenfell Tower. It’s strange that so much money was spent on the refurbishment, and the residents then complain about the health and safety…
“The Grenfell Action Group” was formed in 2010 to oppose the Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre development opposite Grenfell Tower.
A possible motive for destroying this building was that it housed a strong opposition group…
Here’s their blog: https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/about/


What convinced me this fire was an inside job (and to start this thread)...
Just last March (3 months ago), Kensington and Chelsea Council (the freeholder of Grenfell Tower) changed its insurer – from the Swiss company Zurich to the Norwegian Protector Forsikring.
Besides Kensington, 2 other boroughs — Westminster, and Hammersmith and Fulham Council — also switched from Zurich to Protector Forsikring.

The Times newspaper estimates the insurance pay-out as high as £1 billion ($1.27 billion). The eventual cost depends on the number of deaths, the litigation involved, the cost of demolishing the building and the price of rebuilding the tower.
Possibly the single biggest building insurance payout in European history…

Protector Forsikring’s chief executive Sverre Bjerkeli said the firm expects that its reinsurer will pay “almost the entire cost” for the Grenfell Tower disaster. This is probably the giant German company, Munich Re.
Reinsurance is the process by which insurance companies insure themselves against enormous losses: https://sputniknews.com/europe/20170620 ... ce-payout/

Re: Grenfell tower disaster

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 3:40 pm
by Firestarter
Grenfell Tower contained high levels of asbestos. Asbestos was found in artex in ceilings and in panels inside airing cupboards of individual flats.
The Grenfell Tower inferno has released large amounts of asbestos laden smoke, dust and ash into the air of the entire surrounding area and probably other toxic substances (for example from the newly installed “combustible” cladding).
No public statements were made about this risk to the public health. The concentration of these deadly toxins in the air and the local environment haven’t even been measured.

Part of the recent “improvement works” that replaced the heating system in Grenfell Tower, was installing individual heating systems in all of the apartments. Since then they didn’t depend on the central heating system – in the Grenfell Tower boiler room - anymore.
The hundreds of households, surviving in the low rise blocks in the neighbourhood are still dependent on the Grenfell Tower boiler room, however.
These have been left without hot water and gas for cooking: https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.c ... n-victims/


A strong case can be made that all of the residents in the low houses in the area of the Grenfell Tower, deserve alternative houses - both for health reasons and not having hot water and gas.
On the other hand the flats in Camden had to be evacuated on the evening of 23 June...


There is also another way to look at the asbestos “hysteria”.
If the asbestos panels on the outside of the Grenfell Tower had not been replaced by the “combustible” cladding, the fire would have been contained.
For your information, asbestos that is already in a building, and is left alone, isn’t dangerous for your health: http://canadafreepress.com/article/how- ... ll-tragedy


The Chief Executive of the City of London, John Barradell, has taken over the lead from Kensington and Chelsea council in the response to the Grenfell Tower disaster.
The City of London is one of those wonderful democratic institutions in Britain that account to nobody but the big bankers.
The City of London is a corporation, a city and a county, with its own police force – the only one in the UK where businesses can vote.
The City of London has its own form of “democracy”, one in which the majority of votes are controlled by corporations rather than by individuals: https://skwawkbox.org/2017/06/22/should ... -grenfell/

Re: Grenfell tower disaster

Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 4:31 pm
by Firestarter
Naomi Li, 32, and her cousin, Lydia Liao, 23, called the emergency number 999 to ask if they should leave their flat on the 22nd floor of the Grenfell Tower. They were told to stay in their flat.
The heat got more intense, so they covered their faces with wet towels and groped their way down the staircase to safety.
This clear disregard for the authorities saved their lives: http://metro.co.uk/2017/07/03/cousins-t ... g-6750668/


There are claims this inferno was caused by the newly installed gas pipes in the main stairwells.
Residents thought it was dangerous that these pipes were installed in clear sight (instead of covered up in the walls). They also complained about boilers that were left “bare” in living rooms and kitchens: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ts-in-2012

Judith Blakeman, who sits on the board of the Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), raised residents’ fears, and said about the reaction she got:
I was treated like I was a nuisance. I raised 19 complaints on behalf of individual residents. Every single time we were told that the board had satisfied itself that the fire safety was fine.
David Collins, a member of the Grenfell Tower residents’ association, had repeatedly reported concerns to the tenant management organisation of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, including fire safety concerns which were not investigated. Collins said there were:
concerns over locations of boilers, concerns about escape, concerns about fire escape lighting – the list goes on.
I spoke to councillors and they refused to investigate. They wouldn’t believe that the residents were concerned. Ninety percent of residents signed an independent petition asking for there to be an investigation into the organisation that runs this building because they were so incompetent. And the council turned it down.

The board of KCTMO has welcomed the appointment of Sir Martin Moore-Bick to lead the public inquiry into the tragedy at Grenfell Tower: http://www.kctmo.org.uk/news/339/statem ... -the-board

Here’s information on the “independent” Martin James Moore-Bick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Moore-Bick
He became a Queen's Counsel in 1986 and was appointed a Recorder in 1990. He was appointed to the High Court on 2 October 1995, receiving the customary knighthood. He was assigned to the Queen's Bench Division, serving in the Commercial Court. On 7 April 2005, Moore-Bick became a Lord Justice of Appeal, and he was appointed to the Privy Council on 7 June of that year.

Moore-Bick served as Deputy Head of Civil Justice from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2012.[5] Lord Justice Richards took over this role from 1 January 2013 for an initial three-year period.[6] From 1 October 2014 until his retirement, Moore-Bick was Vice President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal.[7] He took over the role on the retirement of Lord Justice Maurice Kay.[8]

In November 2014 Moore-Bick, giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal with which two other judges agreed, ruled that when Westminster City Council offered housing over 50 miles away to a homeless family in its area, it was not necessary for the council to explain in any depth what accommodation was available within its area. The decision was reversed in April 2015 by the Supreme Court, which held that Westminster City Council had not shown that their offer of the property was sufficient to discharge their legal obligations.
Firestarter wrote:Just last March (3 months ago), Kensington and Chelsea Council (the freeholder of Grenfell Tower) changed its insurer – from the Swiss company Zurich to the Norwegian Protector Forsikring.
Besides Kensington, 2 other boroughs — Westminster, and Hammersmith and Fulham Council — also switched from Zurich to Protector Forsikring.
I haven't been able to find out what changed in the coverage from the old insurance policy (Zürich Municipal Insurances) to the new insurance policy (Protector Forsikring).
Most of the insurance pay-out is expected to come from Munich Re, where Forsikring reinsured.

I don’t know if Insurancetimes.co.uk is a reliable source for information, but according to the following article the premium went from:
- 2016-2017: 680,000 pound with Zürich Municipal Insurances (per year?).
- To a total premium of 2.2 million pound, 434,857 pound annually with Protector Forsikring: http://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/grenfel ... 11.article

I don't think anybody can find out if the trade in put options Munich Re and Forsikring was at a suspicious peak the week before 14 June...

Re: Grenfell tower disaster

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2017 4:27 pm
by Firestarter
On 10 July, the police said that the death toll of the Grenfell tower disaster is about 80 and won’t be much higher (or lower).
Scotland Yard also said that there were some 350 people in the Grenfell Tower when the fire broke out, of which 255 escaped (how could they know...): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ce-believe

On 30 August, it was announced that 56 dead people so far have been formally identified.
29 of those names have not been made public at the request of the families: http://news.met.police.uk/news/family-t ... ire-247006

The following article from 23 August, lists 54 people identified, and also shows some 23 missing people (who are believed to be dead): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... med-so-far

A lot of the survivors of the Grenfell fire are still homeless and haven’t been given confirmation that they can be housed in the area. As we have been told over and over again that there’s a shortage in houses this won’t surprise us...

According to the following article there were no less than 1857 vacant dwellings in the boroughs.
About 50 of these houses have been empty for more than 11 years. So obviously these houses are simply an investment scheme (possibly used for money laundering): https://whoownsengland.org/2017/06/18/w ... ensington/
Image

Re: Grenfell tower disaster

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2020 3:25 pm
by Firestarter
Boris Johnson appointed Benita Mehra to assist Sir Martin Moore-Bick, a retired judge who is leading the inquiry into the disaster that claimed 72 lives, as a last minute replacement for Prof Nabeel Hamdi.
Mehra is one of 2 “technical” experts to help Moore-Bick in the hearings into the events leading up to the fire.

Mehra is however associated with the same US conglomerate that made the combustible aluminium composite cladding panels used on Grenfell, Arconic.
During the time Mehra was chairwoman of Women’s Engineering Society charity, from 2015 to 2018, it received a £71,000 grant from the Arconic Foundation (the “charitable” arm of Arconic), which was paid 3 months after the Grenfell disaster in 2017.
It was the largest grant Women’s Engineering received that year and Mehra remains a trustee of this “charity”.

Karim Mussilhy (vice-chair of the survivors group GU) responded to this blatant conflict of interest:
Her society has been supported by Arconic. She will look at it from the perspective of Arconic doing good things for the industry, that they are a great organisation. Her perspective will be affected.
(…)
We will be absolutely furious if she is on the platform and it would be morally wrong to keep this person there.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... dding-firm