Corruption kills: Grenfell Tower

In most cases, corruption is concealed, and it is hard to determine its cost, cause and effect.  However, on some occasions this becomes starkly obvious.

The Grenfell Tower is a 24-storey residential building in London, UK, containing 120 flats. In 2017, a faulty refrigerator in one of the flats caught fire.  The burning fridge set fire to the external rainscreen panels and insulation immediately outside the window.  The fire quickly spread throughout the whole building’s external panels and insulation, and 72 people died in the resultant inferno.  The panels and insulation had shortly before been retrofitted to the building as part of a building renovation project.

A public inquiry was called to examine the causes of the fire. This found that the causes included the following:

• The external rainscreen panels and insulation were highly flammable in breach of building regulations, and the suppliers of these products deliberately suppressed this information. The inquiry report states: “One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products. They engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market….”
• The spreading of the fire was made easier because of defective workmanship and fire safety management in the tower block:
  • fire prevention cavity barriers were incorrectly fitted
  • windows were fitted with combustible sealant
  • fire doors failed to work properly.
• Regulators and building inspectors failed to identify and prevent, or require rectification of, the above breaches.