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A tragedy in pictures: three years since the Grenfell Tower disaster
Annual vigils to mark the devastating fire replaced with an online service due to coronavirus
This Sunday is the third anniversary of the day the UK woke to news that Grenfell Tower in London had caught alight in the country’s worst residential fire since the Second World War.
“Residents of tower blocks and other homes across the UK will be asked to stream a bright green light” from their windows, The Guardian says, while the bells of St Paul’s and Southwark cathedrals will toll 72 times as the bereaved and survivors of Grenfell Tower remember the disaster.
Planned vigils at the base of the burned-out tower block have been cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis. Instead an online service featuring faith leaders and a recording of You’ll Never Walk Alone by the musician Marcus Mumford will go ahead.
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The fire began just before 1am on Wednesday 14 June 2017, when a fridge-freezer caught fire on the fourth floor of the 24-storey block of flats in North Kensington, West London.
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(Image credit: AFP via Getty Images)
More than 250 firefighters and 70 fire engines were sent from stations across London in efforts to control the fire and rescue residents. Over 100 London Ambulance Service crews on at least 20 ambulances also attended.
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(Image credit: 2017 Getty Images)
The vicious fire spread via the building’s exterior cladding, burning for around 60 hours before finally being extinguished.
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(Image credit: 2017 Getty Images)
Once extinguished, all that remained of the tower block was a charred skeleton, looming over one of London’s richest boroughs.
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(Image credit: 2017 Getty Images)
On 15 June, Theresa May, who was then prime minister, visited the site. She met members of the emergency services, but not victims and mourners.
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(Image credit: 2017 Getty Images)
On 17 June, between 50 and 60 people stormed Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall as members of the public said that people made homeless by the fire needed help, the BBC reported at the time.
That anger turned into the Justice4Grenfell campaign, a group calling for an investigation into the building’s construction, as well as support for the victims.
It coincided with the tower being lit up green, a colour that has come to represent the Justice4Grenfell campaign.
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(Image credit: AR)
The tower still stands over London, wrapped in protective sheeting emblazoned with the words “Forever in our Hearts”. The inquiry into the fire is ongoing, but was put on hold in March this year because of the coronavirus outbreak.
