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Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Why the Grenfell Tower death toll hasn't risen for 9 days - as government accused of a "cover up"

Two weeks ago today, the UK woke to horrifying images on their televisions of an entire tower block being consumed by flames as residents screamed from windows.
What followed was a harrowing few days of news coverage during which the Grenfell Tower fire death toll continued to rise, albeit slowly.
Then, nothing. For nine days there was no update to the figure of confirmed fatalities. Many are asking why.
Many people, including MP David Lammy, have raised concerns that we are not being told the full story, accusing the government of a "cover up" to avoid riots.
On Friday, the police gave a briefing and acknowledged the fact the death toll had not risen since the beginning of the week - Monday, June 19 - when they confirmed it to be 79.
  Monday, June 19 - when they confirmed it to be 79.
People are concerned the full story is not being told 
That figure had still not changed by this morning - the following Wednesday, a further five days on.
But police will not release any information until they are fully certain that it is accurate. And due to the nature of the tragedy, it is a difficult and time-consuming process to verify these fatalities.

Do police know about all the people who were in the building?

Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack, who is overseeing the investigation, said in Friday's press briefing that police might not have the entire picture.
"I know that there has been concern and fear that those figures are a lot higher," she said.
"We want to identify all those who died as result of the fire at Grenfell Tower and that is where I need the public's help.
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"I do not want there to be any hidden victims of this tragedy.
"We have been able to focus our efforts all through last weekend and this week to get much greater clarity on those who sadly died and those are still missing who I must now presume are dead.
"That work has been focused on those people we have been told about - those people who were in Grenfell Tower that night or, who we have been told, have connections to Grenfell Tower.
"I remain really concerned though that we do not have a complete picture.
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"There may well be people who no one has contacted us about - who they know were in the building or have close links to Grenfell Tower."
There has been speculation that some people might not be coming forward because they are worried about deportation.
McCormack said: "We are not interested in people's reasons for not telling us sooner and as the Mayor has already said people should be not be nervous about contacting us.
"The Home Office has assured us that they are not interested in people's immigration status and we are not interested in looking at that.
Floral tributes are left near Grenfell Tower to those lost in the blaze 
"What we are interested in is that making sure we know who is missing and we take every possible step to establish if they are safe and well.

Bodies might never be found or identified

Detective Superintendent McCormack confirmed that a full visual search of the building "from top to bottom" has been completed. So why don't we know the full death toll?
The simple fact is that it's incredibly difficult to locate and identify victims.
"The painstaking search continues - we will use a number of different searching techniques - including a full fingertip search in the areas of the building where we need to.
"Next week we will be installing a lift to the outside of the building to assist the recovery process.
A lift will be added to the building to assist investigators 
"Such is the devastation inside, our forensic search and recovery may not be complete by the end of the year.
"There is a terrible reality that we may not find or identify all those who died due to the intense heat of the fire.
"But we will do absolutely everything we can with utmost sensitivity and dignity."
Police are due to hold another press briefing at 2pm today (Wednesday).

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