London fire eyewitness accounts tell of parents throwing kids from Grenfell Tower and one resident who made a parachute
A FRANTIC mum threw her baby from a ninth floor window a hero bystander below while others screamed "save my children" as a fire ravaged their tower block home.
Twelve people have died with the death toll expected to rise and 68 others - 18 critical - are being treated in hospital after the blaze at Grenfell House in west London in the early hours of the morning.
Stunned eyewitnesses have described scenes of carnage as frantic residents trapped inside the block attempted to flee.
Horrified Samira Lamrani told how a baby dropped by a desperate mum "from the ninth or tenth floor" was caught by a hero bystander below.
She told the Press Association: "People were starting to appear at the windows, frantically banging and screaming.
"The windows were slightly ajar, a woman was gesturing that she was about to throw her baby and if somebody could catch her baby.
"Somebody did, a gentleman ran forward and managed to grab the baby."
Speaking to the Huffington Post, she added: "She wrapped her baby in what seemed like a sheet or blanket and threw the young baby out of the window.
“A member of the public, a guy ran forward and just miraculously grabbed the baby at the right moment and then the shadow, I assume the mother, went backwards and that was the last we saw."
She also claimed a resident made a "homemade parachute" to lower himself out of the window as the fire raged.
One witness said he saw a "child on fire" jump from the 22nd floor of the tower block.
He said: "The fire started happening on third floor, we called the fire bridge who came 20 minutes later, and then the whole thing just went up.
"An hour-and-a-half later I saw a kid on the 22nd floor on fire, he walked to the window, and he jumped."
At least 12 people have been killed and 20 more are fighting for their lives - but it is feared scores of residents may have perished.
One fearful local told how a 12-year-old girl trapped in the raging inferno called her best friend to say: "We are not going to make it, I love you".
The teenager, her two younger sisters, mum, dad and grandmother are all missing and feared dead.
Local resident, Hulya, 42, said: "My neighbour told me that one of the daughters rang her own daughter at about 12.30 saying they weren't going to make it and that she loved her.
She's about 13 I think. Nobody has been able to contact any of them since. It's just awful."
Eddie Daffarn was on the 16th floor of the block when he received a call from a neighbour telling him to "get out".
The 55-year-old, who was pictured in the aftermath wearing a blanket, said: "I ran out to find where the exit was and eventually a fireman was lying on the ground and touched my leg and he was able to help me into the fire escape.
"If I had been in that stairwell for any longer I don’t think I would have found the escape exit. You couldn’t see a thing. I was choking badly, it was a moment of life and death for me. I didn’t have that much time to think, it was only when I got into the doorway I realised how serious it was.
“I’m very grateful that the London Fire Brigade were there to help me. I couldn’t see anything. I was choking. I think my neighbour who called me saved my life.”
One bystander, known as only Tamara, said she could hear people screaming for help as the blaze ripped through the tower block.
She told BBC News: "We could hear people screaming 'Help me' so me and my brother, with some other people who live in the area, ran over to the estate to where you could still get underneath it and there were people just throwing their kids out saying 'Save my children'.
"The fire crew, ambulance and police couldn't do anything, they couldn't get in, and they were just telling them to stay where they are, and we'll come and get you. But things quickly escalated beyond measure and they couldn't go back in and get them.
"Within another 15 minutes the whole thing was up in flames and there were still people at their windows shouting 'Help me'. You could see the fire going into their houses and engulfing the last room that they were in."
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One eyewitness told BBC News how he feared a mum had lost two of her children as she battled her way through the blaze to safety.
He added: "There was one woman on the 12th floor, she's left with her six kids and by the time she's got to the ground floor, there's only four of them with her."
Another resident, called Zara, said she saw a woman throw her son, who was about five years old, from a fifth or sixth floor window to escape the blaze.
She told LBC: "One woman actually threw her son out of the window. I think he's OK.
"I think he might have just had some broken bones and bruises. I left my phone at home so I went back to grab it and, by the time I got back, the road was completely blocked off, the fire had dramatically spread.
"It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie.";
Others described harrowing scenes as the fire went from "zero to 100" after it erupted at around 1.16am.
Some claim the fire started on the fourth floor and ripped through the 24-storey building, which is home to hundreds of families.
Desperate residents jumped from windows in scenes "reminiscent of 9/11" as they tried to escape the flames.
Shaken dad Michael Paramasivan, 37, ran down six flights of stairs clinging to his five-year-daughter as the fire ravaged the tower block.
He said: "I grabbed my dressing gown and woke the missus up, grabbed my daughter and stuck her under my dressing gown so she wouldn't breathe in the smoke.
''We then just ran for our lives, we had to run down through the fourth floor where the fire was. There was so much smoke.
''It was crazy, it was just spreading so fast it was like it had been covered in petrol it was going so quickly.
''By the time we got out of the flat it was completely up, in a matter of minutes.
"Everyone was running for their lives."
Mahad Egal escaped from the fourth floor with his family including two children just before 1am.
He sobbed as he revealed how the fire was originally the size of an "average tree" before it spread to cladding and engulfed the tower block in a blazing inferno.
Mahad told the Victoria Derbyshire show: "There stairwells were full of smoke, dark, scary, and a trip hazard and fall hazard as some lights weren't working. It is incredible we survived.
"So many people were left; we had so many relatives and families who were still trapped in, calling and saying please let the fire services know that we are still here.
"There was a kid that called and said that he's trapped in his room. It is a very terrible situation and I can confirm that lives have been lost. There has been fatalities of some of our friends, families, loved ones and neighbours."
Tearfully, he added: "There were people jumping out of the place, a man who threw two of his children out."
Terrified residents were seen waving their bedsheets from the windows as crowds watched on below in horror.
Some lashed the sheets together to make a rope in an attempt to reach the ground.
A witness identified as Daniel told BBC Radio London that people on the upper floors were trapped as the flames rose higher and higher.
"People have been burned," he said. "I have seen it with my own eyes. And I have seen people jump."
While Jody Martin said he battled his way his way to the second floor only to encounter choking smoke.
He added: "I watched one person falling out, I watched another woman holding her baby out the window... hearing screams, I was yelling everyone to get down and they were saying 'We can't leave our apartments, the smoke is too bad on the corridors'."
What we know so far:
- The Metropolitan Police have confirmed 12 people have died but the death toll is expected to rise after a huge fire engulfed Grenfell Tower in West London just before 1am last night.
- The 24 storey high tower block has 120 apartments.
- Around 68 people have been taken to six hospitals in the capital with 18 in a critical condition.
- A resident said the fire started on the fourth floor.
- Residents are still trapped inside the building but there is no fear of the block collapsing.
- The area around the tower has been closed off and around 200 firefighters are at the scene.
- Authorities say the cause of the fire is still not known.
- Residents have been seen jumping from upper floors in scenes reminiscent of September 11.
- Burning debris has been seen falling from the building.
- London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has declared the blaze a “major incident”.
- One witness told Sky they believed the fire was started by a faulty fridge.
The London Fire Brigade has this morning confirmed there have been a number of fatalities in the "unprecedented incident".
There are 120 homes in the flat and the leader of the local council said "several hundred" would have been in the tower block when the blaze broke out.
London Ambulance Service said 68 people have taken to six London hospitals during the "major incident".
Eighteen of those are currently in a critical condition.
Muna Ali compared the flames erupting from the building as similar to September 11.
The 45-year-old said: "'I have lived here almost 21 years and I have never seen anything like this, at first I thought it was terrorism, we were just panicking."
One man was waiting for his girlfriend to escape when he saw people leaping from the inferno.
Michael Creazea, 31, said: "People were screaming and shouting at the police cordon wanting to go back in as they had family members inside.
''I saw people jumping out of windows, I saw people screaming and waving their t-shirts outside the windows for help - but there was fire above and below them.
"Knowing they wouldn't get out and seeing then was hard to take.
''It was really sad, god bless their souls.''
Tsigehana Asefeha, 63, has lived in the building opposite the tower block for 27 years and was evacuated last night.
She told Sun Online: "Out neighbour came down and said there is smoke we just came out because we heard the children screaming 'help help' - it's really terrible. We saw children - they were doing CPR on one.
"I hope the people there are safe."
Shocking photos show the gutted tower block after flames erupted from windows during the horror.
Jumoke Moiett, 32, said: "I was woken up by noise at about 1am and it was people shouting you always get noise but it was 'help, help, help' saying 'we can't get out'.
"You could see the people in the windows, the top floor, they had flash lights. "
Suimi LLeshi, 40, is one of hundreds of people who have been evacuated from their homes.
He told Sun Online: "I heard screaming but it was a long time before I got up because I thought there must be some drunks.
By the time I got out people were screaming 'I have got kids you have got to help' it was very very bad.
"I could see people right at the top at the window.
"No one could anything."
Those trapped in the building could be heard begging for their lives as they waved towels and torches to attract the attention of 200 firefighters who worked through the night.
The building's new cladding completed during a recent £10 million refurbishment reportedly "went up like a match".
Simone Williams, a nurse who lives locally, helped out at the scene.
She told the Victoria Derbyshire show: "I've seen some things, but today I can't even describe it. There were mothers that came out and had lost their children, firefighters that came out injured.
"The police were amazing; there were people saying they didn't care and weren't doing enough, but that's not true.
"It's absolutely horrendous and I just don't know how we're going to move forward and rebuild as a community."
Local resident Amanda Fernandez, 32, who grew up and went to school in the neighbourhood, described the scene as "like Armageddon".
She said: "It was literally like what you see in a film.
"You could hear screaming. It was like a nightmare.
"The lights starting blacking out.
"Then you could see the people inside using their lights on their mobile phones, then you think 'oh my God, they have not got out'.
"There is a lot of anxiety just because you do not know where people are."
Celebs are among the bystanders who watched in horror as the building burst into flames this morning.
Singer Cerys Matthews told BBC Radio 5 live: "When we saw it in the early hours of the morning, the fire caught on the fourth floor.
"The flames ripped up the side of the building along this cladding which clads every single side of the building."
She went on: "It's unbelievable that we're watching this in 2017.
"What we're hearing is that nobody heard any alarms; that there was one exit and this is a 24-storey building. Young families, they were advised the stay put if a fire was going to break out.
"The most chilling thing is that the residents have had an action group for many years."
While Amazing Spaces presenter George Clarke said: "I was in bed and heard 'beep, beep, beep' and thought, 'I'll get up and run downstairs as quickly as I could'.
"I thought it might be a car alarm outside and saw the glow through the windows.
"I'm getting covered in ash, that's how bad it is. I'm 100 metres away and I'm absolutely covered in ash.
"It's so heartbreaking, I've seen someone flashing their torches at the top level and they obviously can't get out.
"The guys are doing an incredible job to try and get people out that building, but it's truly awful."
Worried families have launched desperate appeals for relatives who vanished following the blaze.
A casualty bureau has been set up for anyone concerned about friends and family on 0800 0961 233.