LONDON - POLICE launched an investigation on Saturday into a fire that ripped through a 1960s-era public housing block in south London, killing six people including a newborn baby.
Chief Superintendent Wayne Chance, speaking outside the partly-blackened high-rise building in Camberwell, said Friday's fire had started inside a fourth-floor flat and was being treated as 'suspicious.'
'The investigation is likely to take some time,' he said, explaining that detectives were dealing with a 'large and complex scene.'
The London Fire Brigade said the blaze in the 12-story Lakanal House block of Sceaux Gardens Estate rapidly spread up to the 11th floor - killing three adults and three children, including a three-week-old baby.
Several residents said the complicated layout of the flats had made evacuation difficult. The building, managed by Southwark council, housed low-income families.
Thirty people were rescued and 15 sent to hospital. The bodies of three of the dead remained inside the block, which was being treated as a crime scene, on Saturday, Chance said.
The late-afternoon inferno broke out as London endured a summer heatwave.
'The hot weather and the fact that people's windows were open made the fire what it was,' said veteran firefighter Paul Glenny. -- AFP
