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
Search ABC News
Featured Video
-
Video
A coronial inquest has found Afghan asylum seekers plotted to sabotage the SIEV 36
-
Video
The Archibald Prize: The people who unpack the paintings have picked their favourite
-
Video
Selling cane toads to China and making a profit from one of Australia's most notorious pests.
-
Video
Wash and blow dry: the new machine which gets canines clean.
The ABC News Online Investigative Unit encourages whistleblowers, and others with access to information they believe should be revealed for the public good, to contact us.
