‘This Is Appalling’: Evacuated London Residents Try to Cope
By STEPHEN CASTLEJUNE 24, 2017
LONDON — Addise Mekonen was working a night shift on Friday when he learned from television news
that his apartment was one of 650 London flats being evacuated in the middle of the night amid fears that it might be as dangerous as Grenfell Tower, which had been incinerated in the deadliest blaze in Britain in more than a century.
Britain faces what the leader of the Birmingham City Council, John Clancy, told the BBC on Saturday was a "national emergency." "The dreadful events in London have understandably triggered an outburst of public anger and demands
that councils need to do far more to protect tenants living in high-rise blocks," Mr. Clancy said.
After sitting for hours on a bench in a corner of an emergency relief center near the five towers
that had been evacuated in Camden, north London, Mr. Mekonen had another night shift looming on Saturday, but no bed to sleep in.
" he said as he and dozens of other residents waited to discover where they would spend the coming days and whether their homes were now considered death traps because they were in tower blocks
that had failed fire safety tests. that I’m really shocked,
Camden Council’s extraordinary evacuation of thousands of people, who had to grab clothes
and whatever else they could find and leave quickly in the dead of night, is a jarring example of a gathering political and social crisis.
Austin said that I am very, very uncomfortable and worried,