A witness to the Grenfell Tower fire has said the tragedy “sunk a community”.
Yvette Williams, from campaign group Justice4Grenfell, said “you never unsee Grenfell” as she described the impact it had. Speaking to a Mirror Talks special – which you can watch in full below – she said people affected by the fatal blaze, which claimed 72 lives, had been failed.
Yvette said that most primary schools in the area around the tower lost at least one child as she demanded urgent action. She said: “I was called the fire to pick up a friend who had been evacuated. People don’t understand, the building burned for 60 hours.
“We were walking around in it. When we say nobody of authority turned up, we mean nobody of authority turned up. No one.
“And you never unsee Grenfell, you never unsmell Grenfell, you never unhear Grenfell. Because it was almost surreal what you were seeing;. And the aftermath of Grenfell has sunk a community.
“We’ve got children who are growing up who witnessed the fire. Most primary schools in the area lost at least one child.”
Last week a long-awaited public inquiry report found the tragedy was preventable following decades of failures. The document, by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, said cladding manufacturers were guilty of “systematic dishonesty”, with firms having “deliberately concealed” information about the dangers of its products.
Yvette said during the discussion, now available on YouTube: “The impact is huge and it’s a societal issue because as we’ve seen fires are happening all the time, but other things are happening as well.
“To communities that look like us. People can’t feed their children, people can’t heat their homes. We want something that says ‘look now this has to stop now’.
“We need a better society not just in housing but across the place.”
The Government is facing calls to bring forward plans to remove dangerous cladding from thousands of homes. Since the tragedy, surveys have found 4,630 buildings in England that are over 11 metres had unsafe cladding – but just 1,350 have been re-clad.