Updated: Death Toll May Rise Above 50 in London Building Fire *Baby Thrown from 10th Floor Survives

The casualty figure in the fire that swept through a 27-storey west London tower block early Wednesday has risen to 12 amid fears nobody on its top three floors survived.
Six people were earlier reported dead after fire engulfed Grenfell Tower in White City after 1am, today – but Scotland Yard expects the death toll to rise and there are claims the true number could be “more than 50” or even higher.
But a baby tossed from the “ninth or 10th floor” of the building housing 600 people was caught by a member of the public and survived with only broken bones and bruises, a witness has said.
Today bodies were strewn through the charred block, including in its lobby and undertakers were seen removing the dead in a delicate and treacherous recovery operation set to last several days.
Also, harrowing screams of children and their parents trapped in the Grenfell Tower were reported.
Shocking video footage shared on social media throughout the night shows the fire tearing through the building.
A series of blunders are being blamed for the disaster with residents claiming there were no working fire alarms, no sprinklers and the only staircase leading to safety was blocked.
Those who managed to flee said it was “like hell on earth” inside as they scrambled over dead bodies in scenes akin to 9/11.

Petrified residents were seen throwing themselves and their children out of windows to avoid being burned to death – others made ropes by tying bed sheets together or used them as makeshift parachutes and jumped.
The local council, the block’s landlord and the contractor used to refurbish the building last year face serious questions about how the fire took hold so quickly in a tower branded a “death trap” by survivors.
Checks are to be carried out on tower blocks going through similar refurbishment to Grenfell Tower, policing and fire minister Nick Hurd has said.
A community leader working to locate victims, who asked not to be named, revealed that nobody who lived on the top three residential floors may have survived.
He said: “We have a list of missing people – there are so many. It’s possible there are more than 50, possibly hundreds”.
Police would not confirm how many people are not accounted for because the building is still on fire 12 hours after it started.
The trapped, some of whom are still inside, were heard begging for their lives while waving white towels, torches and mobile phones to attract the attention of the 200 firefighters who started storming the building within six minutes of the 999 call.
Those who managed to flee said they scrambled over dead bodies.
Grenfell’s own community action group called for the tower to be pulled down four years ago over “appalling” fire safety in the building and said today their repeated warnings to landlord Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) fell on “deaf ears”.
KCTMO completed a £10million refurbishment last year and the new cladding encasing the block originally built in 1974 “went up like a match”, one resident has said.
One White City resident called Tamara told the BBC: “There were people just throwing their kids out saying: ‘Save my children’. 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.”
Dany Cotton, Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, said there had been “a number of fatalities” and structural engineers are checking the stability of the building, which appears to have warped.
London Ambulance Service said 50 people are in hospital and paramedics are treating many more walking wounded for smoke inhalation and minor burns.
One witness said he saw several people jumping to their deaths from all floors to escape the fire.
A survivor broke down on live TV as he said his neighbour on the fourth floor had confessed that his “fridge had exploded” before fire swamped the building – but the fire service told MailOnline it is too early to confirm the cause
Samira Lamrani, 38, said: “He was just beside himself. He was just as surprised at how quickly the fire spread as anybody else.
“I could hear him saying that he contacted the emergency services immediately and they reassured him everything would be under control within a short period of time, and obviously it wasn’t.”
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said questions will need to be answered over the safety of tower blocks in the capital as a result of the fire.
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