LONDON — Addise Mekonen was working a night shift on Friday when he learned from television news that his apartment was one of 650 London flats being evacuated in the middle of the night amid fears that it might be as dangerous as Grenfell Tower, which had been incinerated in the deadliest blaze in Britain in more than a century.

After sitting for hours on a bench in a corner of an emergency relief center near the five towers that had been evacuated in Camden, north London, Mr. Mekonen had another night shift looming on Saturday, but no bed to sleep in.

“I’m really shocked,” he said as he and dozens of other residents waited to discover where they would spend the coming days and whether their homes were now considered death traps because they were in tower blocks that had failed fire safety tests.

“In the world’s fifth-largest economy, this is appalling,” added Mr. Mekonen, a resident of the Bray tower block who is originally from Ethiopia. “This wouldn’t happen in Africa.”