Father of baby girl killed in fire tells of anguish

Published on Saturday 4 July 2009 19:54

A FATHER yesterday told of his anguish after listening helplessly on his mobile phone to the cries of his wife and baby daughter as they perished in a tower block inferno.

As calls mounted for a public enquiry amid claims that residents were trapped inside the council flats in Camberwell, London, by blocked fire exits, the cousin of Mbet Udoaka, 37, described how he had raced home from work after his wife Helen called to tell him she was trapped in the blaze.

When he arrived on the scene, however, police and firefighters would not allow him to enter the building, and he was forced to listen to his wife's frantic cries until she lost consciousness.

Udoaka's cousin Mary said: "Helen was panicking and crying, but they were on the phone to each other constantly until she was too weak to cry. He was beside himself. He so wanted to run to their rescue but was stopped."

Three-week-old baby Michelle Udoaka has been named as the youngest victim of the blaze.

Mary said Michelle was the couple's first child. "Everyone in the family was so pleased and they were just planning the christening. They were such a loving couple."

Another resident told how she made a desperate call to a friend trapped inside the fire. Brazilian Dayana Fracisquini, 26, died in the blaze with her two young children, Felipe, aged three and four-year-old Thais (corr).

Neighbour Yolimar Caboz, 33, said: "When the fire started, I called Dayana and said 'where are you? Please come down quickly.' She said: 'I can't go down, there's too much smoke.'

'I told her to get wet towels over her head, and the children's, and try to get through the smoke. I said 'please, do it quickly.' She promised me she would try."

At about 5pm her husband Rafaelle arrived, Caboz said. "He was so distressed. He was talking to her on the phone, I was speaking to the firemen, the police, the ambulance, telling anyone I could she was trapped in the building with her babies. Her husband started screaming, in the middle of the street."

She added: "She was staying calm because she didn't want to scare the children, she was keeping calm for them. She said: 'I am ok, I am.'

"She sounded sad, she was trying to stay in control but she was so scared. The children were silent, they were quiet. That was the last time I spoke to her.'"

More than 100 firefighters were called in to tackle the blaze, which broke out on Friday afternoon. while 16 ambulances stood by. Twenty people, many of them suffering from smoke inhalation, were taken to local hospitals, while another 100 residents were evacuated.

Investigators were last night still investigating the cause of the fire. which also claimed the life of 31-year-old Catherine Hickman. However, serious questions were being raised about whether there were escape routes and fire prevention measures were adequate at the 12-storey 1960s building, which had a single central staircase.

Harriet Harman, the area's MP and leader of the House of Commons, said questions needed to be asked about fire escape routes at the flats. "There will have to be a thorough investigation into what caused this fire and whether the prevention was adequate.

"There are many blocks with one central stairwell and questions will have to be asked about what happens when a fire breaks out."

Several residents described the complicated layout of the maisonettes as "a maze" and said it made the evacuation difficult while onlookers described seeing those trapped inside screaming for help.

Poice said they were treating the cause of the fire as suspicious. Assistant Commissioner Nick Collins, of the London Fire Brigade, said it was "one of the most significant fires in some time in terms of lives lost".

He said it was "very difficult" to be conclusive about the cause of the blaze and it may take "some weeks at the very least".

Collins said the building's construction was "common" in London but the rapid spread of the fire was unusual.

"It's a unique situation that's occurred here," he said.

Brian Coleman, chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, said investigators would be examining how and why the blaze was able to spread so quickly.

"In buildings such as this one you should be safe for an hour before fire jumps from floor to floor," he said. "That wasn't the case in these circumstances and I think we need to know why the fire spread so quickly and jumped between floors in such a short space of time." He added that once the single staircase becomes blocked, "things become difficult".

Residents last night described the flats as "death traps." Ed Hammond, 37, an accountant who lives on the seventh floor, said: "If the fire is in the central area, you would virtually have nowhere to go."

Zahera Chaudry, 21, whose sister was in a first-floor flat when the blaze broke out, said there was no central fire alarm system in operation.: "These buildings should have been torn down years ago."