A public inquiry into a fire that killed at least 80 people at London’s Grenfell Tower will get to the truth about the tragedy, its chairman pledged on Thursday, but critics said survivors of the blaze were still being failed.
The 24-storey social housing block, home to a poor, multi-ethnic community, was gutted on June 14 in an inferno that started in a fourth-floor apartment in the middle of the night and quickly engulfed the building.
Grenfell Tower was part of a deprived housing estate in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the richest boroughs in London, and the disaster has prompted a national debate about social inequality and government neglect of poor communities.
The inquiry started with a minute’s silence to honour the victims, whose exact number remains unknown because of the devastation inside the tower.
“(The inquiry) can and will provide answers to the pressing questions of how a disaster of this kind could occur in 21st century London,” its chairman, retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, said in his opening statement.
He said the inquiry was not there to punish anyone or to award compensation, but to get to the truth. A separate police investigation is underway, which could result in manslaughter charges. There have been no arrests.
The inquiry will examine the cause and spread of the fire, the design, construction and refurbishment of the tower, whether fire regulations relating to high-rise buildings are adequate and whether they were complied with. It will also look at the actions of the authorities before and after the tragedy.
But critics warned of a disconnect between the technical, legalistic inquiry process and the ongoing ordeal of traumatised former Grenfell Tower residents still awaiting new homes.
Prime Minister Theresa May pledged that all families whose homes were destroyed in the fire would be rehoused within three weeks, but three months later most still live in hotels.
Just three out of 197 households that needed rehousing have moved into permanent homes, while 29 have moved into temporary accommodation.
“We lost everything. It’s difficult for the other people to be in our shoes,” Miguel Alves, who escaped his 13th-floor apartment in Grenfell Tower with his family, told the BBC.
“Now I’m without anything, I’m in the hotel, I have to cope with my family. My daughter, she just started school. They need some stability and that I cannot give to my family,” he said
