London fire: Mourning, anger and questions over lives lost in inferno

London's fire chief has warned that it could take weeks to identify all the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, such is the devastation caused by the blaze.

A day after the devastating fire in North Kensington, firefighters were still working to dampen the blaze and search for remains of the dead. Police said the confirmed number of deaths had reached 17.

Dany Cotton, London's fire commissioner, said she had "genuinely" no idea about how many people were still missing. She also admitted that it we be an "absolute miracle" if there was still anyone alive in the tower and that it would take "weeks" to complete a proper search with the building still unstable.

On Thursday, Labour Member of Parliament David Lammy called for arrests to be made over the fire, describing the incident as "corporate manslaughter."

here are the latest developement so far:

• Final death toll still unknown, no number put on missing
• Residents who escaped were offered housing overnight
• Local council says it has enough donations for the survivors
• 37 people in hospital, 17 of which are critical
• British Prime Minister Theresa May visited the site Thursday

British Prime Minister Theresa May visited the site of the fire on Thursday where she talked to those involved in the rescue effort.

"We built buildings in the 70s, those 70s buildings, many of them should be demolished, they haven't got easy fire escapes, they've got no sprinklers - it's totally, totally unacceptable in Britain that this is allowed to happen and people lose their lives in this way and people should be held to account."

Speaking Thursday, fire chief Cotton said that urban search and rescue dogs would be deployed inside the building.

Cotton said that while the core of the building was structurally sound, dogs were lighter and more agile than people. Her staff will remain on scene for "days to come" and that the search of the tower would be a "slow and painstaking process."

Cotton also said that parts of the building would have to be shored up in order to make it safe for rescue workers to reach each floor.

Questions remain over how the Grenfell Tower fire began and how it spread so quickly through the 1970s-era building that was home to as many as 500 people.

Originally constructed in 1974, the residential tower block had recently undergone a massive $13.2M (£10.3M) refurbishment carried out by private developers Rydon and completed in the summer of 2016.

According to the local authority's website, these large-scale works included the installation of "insulated exterior cladding, new double-glazed windows and a new communal heating system, with the goal of improving energy efficiency."

Residents had complained about safety going back several years. Many of those evacuated said the fire had spread incredibly quickly with almost no warning and multiple residents told CNN they did not hear fire alarms when the blaze broke out.

source: cnn