More than 1,500 people attended a commemorative service at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral on Thursday marking six months since the deadly Grenfell Tower fire. (Pool/Reuters)

Marking six months since the deadliest fire in modern British history, members of the royal family attended a service Thursday that commemorated the 71 dead but also underscored the lingering hardships and questions since the Grenfell Tower apartment building was engulfed in flames.

More than 100 families remain in temporary accommodations after the June 14 blaze, and some survivors and neighborhood residents worry that their concerns may not be given adequate attention in the official inquiry into the tragedy.

Fire-safety measures remain an issue, and appeals continue for authorities to get rid of the type of flammable exterior material that is thought to have contributed to the fast-moving Grenfell inferno. Some residents of the 24-story building were left trapped high above the street.

In the weeks after the fire, the government tested cladding on high-rise buildings across the country; 262 failed. Thousands of people are still living in structures confirmed to be at risk.

The Grenfell fire occurred in one of Britain's richest boroughs — Kensington and Chelsea — and highlighted the stark contrast between the wealthy and occupants of lower-grade housing in the neighborhood.

More than 1,500 people attended the six-month memorial service at St. Paul's Cathedral in central London, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry.



Mourners hold white roses and photos of some of the 71 victims of the fire as they left St. Paul’s. (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images)

[Months later, London police give a full accounting of the dead]

Some in the congregation, many of them weeping, clutched pictures of loved ones lost in the fire, which started in the kitchen of a fourth-floor apartment and quickly enveloped the high-rise. Fifty-three adults and 18 children died.

At one point during the service, voice recordings of those who escaped were played.

"I smelled smoke, but I assumed it was — my mum always has a little candle, so I went to blow out the candle," said one male voice.

"Windows broke. Things were falling to the floor. And then, in the space of six minutes, the fire had already reached six floors above," said a female survivor.



Prince Harry, at left, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William were among the mourners at the memorial service. (Pool/Reuters)

A total of 111 families are still living in emergency accommodations, including hotels. According to the Kensington and Chelsea Council, 45 households have moved into permanent homes and 54 into temporary housing. Another 49 families have accepted offers of permanent housing but have yet to move.

"We have an army of 300 staff working around the clock," Elizabeth Campbell, the leader of the Kensington and Chelsea Council, said in a statement.

The council came under intense criticism for ignoring complaints from Grenfell residents before the fire about fire-safety concerns, including a lack of sprinklers.

Emotions remain so raw that some of the Grenfell families said they did not want council representatives at Thursday's service. Campbell, who was elected to head the council after the fire, did not attend.

"I want them to know that we will be thinking of them," she said. "We hope to rebuild trust, but we understand that we have a long way to go."

[Britain’s housing crisis looms large as Grenfell fire survivors reckon with what’s next]

Reflecting the diversity of Grenfell Tower, the multifaith memorial service included a moving song performed by the Al-Sadiq and Al-Zahra Schools girls choir and a piece played on an oud, a lutelike instrument common in southwestern Asia and North Africa. At the end of the service, children from schools near Grenfell Tower scattered green hearts — a symbol of the fire — in memory of the dead.

This week, the first hearings were held in a government-ordered public inquiry into the blaze. The probe has come under criticism from survivors and locals who are concerned that their voices are not being given the prominence they deserve.

Ahmed Chellat, 60, was at the procedural hearings this week. His brother- and sister-in-law and their three children died in the fire.

"It's still devastating," he said.

Chellat said that he hoped the inquiry could "find out the truth and prevent it from happening again" but that he wanted to see someone from the community on the inquiry's advisory panel.

"We really need someone from the social housing point of view, the ethnic background point of view, to put our issues across," he said. Social housing is another term for affordable housing.

David Lammy, a Labour Party lawmaker who lost a friend in the fire, tweeted Thursday that survivors and family members "must be at the heart of the inquiry."

A separate criminal investigation is underway that could take more than a year to complete. London's Metropolitan Police has said it will consider individual and corporate manslaughter charges.

On Thursday night, as has happened on the 14th of every month since the fire, people walked silently around the streets near Grenfell Tower in a tribute to the dead.

The tower, now a charred block that dominates the local skyline, is being covered by white sheeting, floor by floor. No decision has been made about the building's future.

Read more

What the Grenfell Tower fire tells us about London’s housing crisis

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