Tower blocks evacuated amid safety fears

LONDON - The United Kingdom said 27 high-rise apartment blocks had failed fire safety checks carried out after the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, including several in north London where residents were forced to evacuate amid chaotic scenes late on Friday.

British officials have conducted tests on some 600 high-rise buildings across England after fire ravaged the Grenfell social tower block in west London on June 14, killing at least 79 people in the capital's most deadly blaze since World War II.

The Department for Communities said 27 apartment blocks had failed tests in Camden, Manchester, Plymouth, Hounslow, Portsmouth and Brent.

A spokesman for the department said: "As soon as results of tests are received we share the information with building owners and the fire service for them to decide the next steps."

Prime Minister Theresa May, who was forced to apologize for the government's initial slow response to the tragedy, said the authorities were now racing to establish what needed to be done.

"In some cases it's possible to take mitigating action", she told Sky news. "In others it's been necessary for people to move out on a temporary basis and that is what happened in Camden last night."

Some 4,000 residents of the Chalcots Estate in Camden, north London, were told to vacate their apartments on Friday after the Fire Brigade ruled that their tower blocks were unsafe.

"I know it's difficult but Grenfell changes everything," Georgia Gould, leader of Camden Council, said in a statement.

May said the local authority would be given all the means necessary to make sure people had somewhere to stay.

Combustible cladding

Six emails sent by and to an Arconic Inc sales manager raise questions about why the company supplied combustible cladding to a distributor for use at Grenfell Tower, despite publicly warning such panels were a fire risk for tall buildings.

The emails, dating from 2014 and seen by Reuters, were between Deborah French, Arconic's UK sales manager, and executives at the contractors involved in the bidding process for the refurbishment contract at Grenfell Tower.

When asked about the emails, Arconic said in a statement that it had known the panels would be used at Grenfell Tower but that it was not its role to decide what was or was not compliant with local building regulations. The company manufactures three main types of Reynobond panel - one with a polyethylene core, one with a fire retardant core and another with a noncombustible core, according to its website.

Diagrams in a 2016 Arconic brochure for its Reynobond panels describe how PE core panels are suitable up to 10 meters in height. Panels with a fire resistant core - the FR model - can be used up to 30 meters, while above that height, panels with the noncombustibleble core - the A2 model - should be used, the brochure says.

Grenfell Tower is more than 60 meters tall.

The brochure also issued a blunt warning that cladding can be a fire risk.

"When conceiving a building, it is crucial to choose the adapted products in order to avoid the fire to spread to the whole building. Especially when it comes to facades and roofs, the fire can spread extremely rapidly," the brochure said.

"As soon as the building is higher than the firefighters' ladders, it has to be conceived with an incombustible material." Nonetheless, between May and July 2014, French, who was based at Arconic's factory in Merxheim, France, responded to requests from the companies involved in refurbishing Grenfell Tower on the availability of samples of five different types of Reynobond aluminium-covered panels, all of which were only available in the combustible PE and FR versions, according to Arconic brochures.

In the end, Arconic said on Friday, the company provided PE panels. "While we publish general usage guidelines, regulations and codes vary by country and need to be determined by the local building code experts," the company said in an emailed statement in response to the Reuters enquiry.

Reuters - Xinhua

(China Daily 06/26/2017 page12)