Texto para a questão.
A DEADLY BLAZE IN LONDON
A tower-block fire prompts claims of government negligence
Britain
Jun 14th 2017
THE fire began in the early hours of June 14th on the second floor of Grenfell Tower, a building erected to provide social housing as part of Kensington and Chelsea’s slum-clearance programme in the 1970s. Its 24 floors were consumed by flames as inhabitants attempted to escape. By dawn the tower was a smouldering wreck; smoke drifted across the capital’s pink-hued sky. Twelve were confirmed to have died and more than 70 treated in hospital. Police said that the number of casualties would rise.
Experts were astonished by the fire, since modern building technology ought to have protected against such a disaster. Some escapees said they were not woken by smoke alarms, that there were no sprinklers to dampen the flames and that recently installed cladding had seemed particularly flammable. Local councils normally advise residents of tower blocks to stay put in the event of a fire, since the buildings are designed to contain the flames until the emergency services arrive. As the fire was not contained, that advice may have put people in danger.
A residents’ group had previously complained to the Kensington and Chelsea Tower Management Organisation (KCTMO), which runs the tower, about the building’s vulnerability to such a fire. In 2013 they warned that safety equipment had not been tested; last year they protested that the landlords had been slow to clear household debris from the exit of the block of flats. They say their complaints were not investigated. KCTMO says it is aware that concerns had been raised, and that they will form part of its investigation into what happened.
The ramifications could reach the ′ minister’s office. In 2009 a fire killed six people in a socialhousing block in south London. An MPs’ investigation concluded that the government ought to review fire regulations in towers. Gavin Barwell, who was recently appointed Theresa May’s chief of staff, said when housing minister in October last year that his department had “publicly committed” to looking at fire safety regulation, but a review had not been published by the time he lost his seat at the general election.
In 1968 the ∂ collapse of Ronan Point Tower in Newham, east London, following a gas explosion, led to a far-reaching overhaul of building regulations. Grenfell Tower was among the first to be subject to the new rules. It is now sure to inspire a new inquiry of its own.
(Adapted from <<http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21723382- tower-block-fire-prompts-claims-government-negligence-deadlyblaze-london>>)
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