By Victoria Mckeown-
Two men were today rushed to hospital following a tower block fire in East London, with a further 36 people treated at the scene.
The hospitalised men are suffering from smoke inhalation.
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125 firefighters and 20 fire engines rushed to the scene on Fairmount Avenue in Poplar at around 9am this morning.
Videos circulated on twitter showing the blaze several stories high, with smoke rising into the air. It’s reported that people were trapped on their balconies shouting for help, while other residents managed to evacuate.
The London Fire Brigade confirmed that parts of the eighth, ninth and 10th floors of a 19-storey block which is the Providence Wharf development where leaseholders have been campaigning for the ACM cladding to be replaced. The cause f the fire has not been confirmed.
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A ground floor flat was destroyed due to water damage.
A further 36 adults – including four children – have been treated at the scene by London Ambulance Service crews for shock and smoke inhalation.
The building on fire was partly clad in the same aluminium composite material as that of the Grenfell Tower building which set alight in June 2017 and claimed 72 innocent lives and left a further 70 victims injured.
The developers of the block, Ballymore only offered to pay a small part of the cost of replacing the cladding in 2019.
The End Our Cladding Scandal campaign group was created to end the scandal of residents trapped in private residential blocks with dangerous cladding. Since the Grenfell Tower fire 176 private residential buildings have were found to have similar, dangerous cladding.
The buildings are among thousands in the UK affected by the post-Grenfell fire safety crisis. Almost a quarter of their facades are constructed with aluminium composite material panels, which were used on Grenfell. The areas around the windows and balconies appeared to be most involved in Friday’s fire.
The Group tweeted the following today: “We hope all victims of the fire in New Providence Wharf are okay. Grenfell was almost 4 years ago. How is it acceptable that works on some of the UK’s most dangerous buildings haven’t even begun? It’s only a matter of time before this happens again.”
The Prime Minister at the time of the disaster, Theresa May announced that there would be a public inquiry into the fire at Grenfell Tower.
During Phase 1 of the enquiry in Edward Daffarn, a resident of Grenfell who had complained before the disaster about fire safety flaws testified how he had written the following in his blog a year before the disaster:
“It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said in a statement to The Eye Of Media.Com: “We thank the emergency services for their work to extinguish the fire in New Providence Wharf.
“As we await their report on the cause of the fire it is too early to speculate, but we are working closely with the London Fire Brigade.
“The building has received £8m government funding to remove unsafe ACM cladding – this work was set to take place on Monday and we have been in regular contact with Ballymore over the last two years to make progress, including publicly naming Landor, their subsidiary, as one of the companies that has consistently failed to take action.
“Ministers have met Ballymore repeatedly to urge action.
“We are spending £5bn to fully fund the replacement of all unsafe cladding in the highest risk buildings and are making the biggest improvements to building safety in a generation.
“It is essential that building owners take swift action to remediate defective cladding and the government will fund every eligible application. Workers are on-site in 95% of buildings identified as having ACM cladding at the beginning of 2020 and we expect that work to be completed at pace in the coming months.”
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