Deadly London apartment fire 'suspicious'
Posted
The late-afternoon inferno broke out as London endured a summer heatwave. (AFP Image: stringer)
Police launched an investigation into a fire that ripped through a 1960s-era public housing block in south London, killing six people including a newborn baby.
Chief Superintendent Wayne Chance, speaking outside the partly-blackened high-rise building in Camberwell, said the fire had started inside a fourth-floor flat and was being treated as "suspicious."
"The investigation is likely to take some time," he said, explaining that detectives were dealing with a "large and complex scene."
The London Fire Brigade said the blaze in the 12-story Lakanal House block of Sceaux Gardens Estate rapidly spread up to the 11th floor - killing three adults and three children, including a three-week-old baby.
Several residents said the complicated layout of the flats had made evacuation difficult. The building, managed by Southwark council, housed low-income families.
Thirty people were rescued and 15 sent to hospital. The bodies of three of the dead remained inside the block, which was being treated as a crime scene, on Saturday, Chance said.
The late-afternoon inferno broke out as London endured a summer heatwave. "The hot weather and the fact that people's windows were open made the fire what it was," said veteran firefighter Paul Glenny.
- AFP
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