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Grenfell Tower fire: 650 London homes evacuated

Some 650 households on the Chalcots estate in north London are being evacuated to allow "urgent fire safety works" to take place in the wake of the fatal Grenfell Tower fire, which claimed at least 79 lives.

  • Camden Council earlier identified a number of blocks in the borough used similar cladding to that used in Grenfell Tower
  • The authority said that while the insulation was safe, the external cladding was not up to the expected standard and the work would last several weeks
  • Those living in four of the five tower blocks on the north London estate are being moved into temporary accommodation
  • The works to make the towers safe is expected to take between four and six weeks
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London tower block search 'could take weeks'

Commissioner Dany Cotton said the search process could take weeks.

Attempts to locate and identify all the victims inside Grenfell Tower could take "weeks", according to London Fire Brigade (LFB).

Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton warned it would be a "very slow and painstaking" process to reach all of those caught in Wednesday's inferno.

Speaking on Thursday, Commissioner Cotton anticipated that firefighters would be outside the scene in west London for "many days to come".

"The building itself, the core of it is structurally sound at the moment, so the firefighters have been going in," she said.

Speaking of the death toll, she added: "We know there will be more. It's the upper floors that will be more challenging and will need some additional shoring for us to be able to get in there.

"The size of this building, it could weeks. I want to be realistic, this is a very long process."

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Grenfell Tower fire: 650 London homes evacuated

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