The number of people who died in the Grenfell Tower fire will remain at about 80, police believe.

Scotland Yard said they thought 350 people were in the tower when fire ripped through it last month.

They said 255 people had survived and another 14 residents were not in their flats at the time of the blaze.

It is the first time Scotland Yard has given a figure for the number of residents in the west London tower when the fire broke out. They believe the number of dead will stay at about 80 despite suggestions from some independent experts that the toll could be more than 100.

The figures were given at a press conference on Monday. Police said claims that hundreds were still missing were incorrect.

Police said they were starting from the point that the 80 deaths resulted potentially from manslaughter. Assistant commissioner Martin Hewitt said: “This fire should not have happened and as a result of that fire a large number of people have lost their lives.”

Police revealed one call from a desperate resident to a 999 operator lasted 55 minutes. The advice to residents to “stay put” in the event of a fire will be part of the investigation, which will examine why it spread so quickly.



Commander Stuart Cundy said the criminal investigation would bring whoever is to blame to justice. “You can’t listen to the families and listen to the 999 calls and not want to hold people to account for a fire that should not have happened,” he said.

Police said 73 people had been reported missing. Of these, experts have been able to positively identify 32 victims. But so great was the inferno that raged at 1,000C that 41 people have not been identified so far.



It is understood that families have been told that the remains of their loved ones were so badly damaged by fire that it would not be possible to return them.



Experts are going through tonnes of debris, often in tiny pieces, by hand to detect anything that may be human. Devastation in the block of flats is worst from the eighth floor upwards, police said. DCI Andy Chalmers said British police had taken advice from experts in New York who recovered remains and identified victims after the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.

Grenfell Tower contained 129 flats, most of which were one- or two-bed properties. Police have been unable to trace survivors from 23 flats.

Chalmers said the intensity meant some people would not be identified. There is evidence that as the fire spread, residents moved around the block looking for safety.



Postmortems so far have recorded the cause of death as the effects of fire. Chalmers said: “There are a lot of different gases released as a result of the fire.”