Smoke rises from the Grenfell Tower in London. Photo / AP
Smoke rises from the Grenfell Tower in London. Photo / AP
An Australian witness living next to the blazing apartment building in London has described watching as people at the windows slumped down, overcome by smoke.
Jody Martin heard the fire engines coming down his street, and looked outside to see the apartment tower on fire.
Martin ran outside, grabbed a fire axe, and found a way into the building.
"I got into the second floor through somebody's apartment, go through the door and got into the corridor," he said.
Martin spotted two people in the smoky corridor and helped lead them down the stairs, where they met firefighters coming up.
At that point the are was too smoke-logged for Martin to remain.
He told Newstalk ZB's Larry Williams he then ran around the outside of the building screaming to people in the apartments to get out of the building.
"They were screaming back to me 'we can't, we can't get through the smoke, we're trapped in here.' Now I'm looking at those flats and all those flats are burnt out."
He watched as firefighters tried to spray the out-of-control flames, but said there was no use.
A person peers out of a window from the Grenfell Tower on fire in London. Photo / AP
"It was just too big, too big to put out with hoses. There was just no way of putting this fire out."
Martin was hit by debris falling from the burning building. He said a falling piece of metal singed his leg, at which point police made him retreat to a safe distance.
"I've just been watching this blaze just slowly engulf this whole building ... I've just been watching the apartments of people at the windows slowly screaming at the windows, flashing their phones for help, and slowly each apartment gets burnt out.
"My partner saw someone at the other side jump out the window."
He had spotted mothers holding toddlers out of the windows, and people calling for help.
"You see them at the window and just slowly see them slump down."
Martin said from the perspective of many residents they would not have realised the danger they were in until it was too late.
"Even though they're looking out the window, they can see a bit of smoke in their corridors, they wouldn't have been aware of the other side of the building that was just from the bottom to the top, flames. They must have been looking out the window going 'look, the fire brigade's here, they're going to come put the fire out,' thinking they're okay, and then it's just slowly been getting worse and worse and moving around the building further and further ... family after family just in there. There's just no way out."
Martin said he saw the lights carried by firefighters go up into the fourth floor, but no higher, and could not see them anymore.
He said the building was totally burned and he could see straight through it.
"There's no one there. No one alive anyway."
Martin said most people would have been sleeping when the fire started, and by the time they woke up it would have been too late to escape.
He didn't expect the building to collapse, saying the cement structure looked intact.
When he went into the building, Martin said there were no fire or smoke alarms going off, the elevators didn't work, and he could not find a door to a set of stairs. From the outside he was unable to see any fire exits, and the search was not helped by the debris falling down.
"Literally the debris, crashing down around me. It's just like a war zone, you know, just coming off the building."
The people he came across inside looked confused about how to get out as well, he said. They were kneeling down, "looking like they were trying to get a plan together in that area".
Martin was shaken, and didn't expect to get any sleep tonight.
