Met commander says officers have made 87 recoveries but cannot confirm they come from 87 people

Police investigating the Grenfell Tower fire have recovered 87 sets of human remains but cannot confirm they are from 87 individuals.

In an update on the investigation, the Metropolitan police commander, Stuart Cundy, said: “In total we have made 87 recoveries, but I must stress that the catastrophic damage inside Grenfell Tower means that is not 87 people.”

These were last of the visible human remains left in the Tower, he said. “Until formal identification has been completed to the coroner’s satisfaction, I cannot say how many people have now been recovered.”

Last month Scotland Yard warned it could take until the end of the year or longer to be sure how many people died in the fire, after raising the number of people presumed dead to 80.



So far only 21 victims have been formally identified.

Anthropologists have been brought in to advise investigators searching by hand through tonnes of debris recovered from each floor of the 24-storey block.

Cundy said: “This will involve us meticulously going through about 15.5 tonnes of debris on each floor to find those human remains that are still within the debris inside Grenfell Tower.

“We will use all the information we have, especially what we have been told by survivors and families, to prioritise our search where we believe we may find more human remains. This will take us many months, but we will search each and every flat.

“Such is the devastation caused by the fire that it may be that, tragically, we cannot find or identify all those who lost their lives.”



So far police have spoken to at least one person from 106 of the 129 flats in the building. Investigators have been unable to trace anyone from the remaining 23 flats.

“We assume that sadly no one from any of those flats survived,” Cundy said. “Until our search operation is complete, I cannot say with any certainty how many people may have been in those flats, as occupiers or visitors, that night.

On Tuesday night, victims’ families and survivors had a highly charged meeting with Cundy and Dr Fiona Wilcox, the coroner tasked with identifying the dead.

Cundy said he understood the desire for answers from families and loved ones. “It is vitally important that families and loved ones are engaged and know what we are doing and why. We will continue to involve families throughout the investigation,” he said.