London tower fire protesters storm town hall

Several hundred protesters chanting "we want justice" stormed a town hall in London on Friday after a deadly fire at a block of flats killed at least 30 people, Reuters reporters at the scene said.

The protesters barged their way through an automatic door at Kensington and Chelsea council town hall and sought to gain entry to an upper floor. Police barred their way and scuffles broke out, a Reuters reporter said.

Seventeen bodies have been found in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower and more than 76 people are unaccounted for, according to media reports.

The devastating fire may have been so powerful that it destroyed much of the DNA evidence needed to identify its victims.

Experts said the intensity of Wednesday's fire will make naming victims extremely difficult, drawing comparisons to the 2001 World Trade Centre terror attacks in New York, where 40 percent of the victims were never identified.

The protesters chanted: "We want justice", "bring them out" and "shame on you". A larger crowd of people remained outside.

Some people then left the building though others remained inside. Several dozen police, including mounted officers, were in attendance. The protesters were angered when no one from the council came out to address their concerns, reporters said.

There have been demands for answers as to how the blaze was able to engulf the 24-storey building, trapping many on the upper floors, along with complaints that not enough was being done to provide assistance for people left homeless or information about those still missing. British Prime Minister Theresa May visited the injured in hospital on Friday but is herself under mounting criticism for not meeting victims of the blaze sooner. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, London mayor Sadiq Khan, Prince William and Queen Elizabeth, 91, have all visited residents from the tower which housed around 600 people.

May met victims privately at a central London hospital on Friday and had expressed her sorrow on television on Thursday after meeting emergency services personnel.

"She should have been there with the residents. You have to be prepared to receive people's emotions, and not be so frightened about people," former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo told the BBC.

Mayor Khan wrote to May on Friday, saying residents felt increasingly enraged and frustrated by the slow response from the authorities.

"The local community feels their grief has been made worse by the lack of information about their missing family members and friends," he wrote. Residents in other blocks with the same exterior cladding as Grenfell Tower were concerned, he wrote. "People are terrified that the same thing could happen to them," Khan wrote in the letter.

May's response has been contrasted with that of Corbyn, who hugged locals at the estate during his visit on Thursday, and the royals who met residents and volunteers on Friday. "That's one of the most terrible things I have ever seen," Prince William said of the tower's blackened shell.

Some desperate residents pleaded to speak to the queen and her grandson about their plight and the fate of missing children as they left the site, with William promising he would return. Residents wanted answers on why the fire was able to spread so rapidly and why complaints about safety had been ignored.

Source: Khaleej Times