In the days after a fire swept through Grenfell Tower last June, it was hard to identify the number and names of the victims. There was no master list of who was in the tower when the blaze started shortly after 1 a.m. There are records of tenants. But some weren’t home, and others had guests.
At the time, police estimated that 80 people had died. But in the absence of concrete facts, rumors swirled. One website falsely reported that a baby was found alive inside the apartment building 12 days after the fire.
Even after the fire was extinguished, police struggled. Initially, they compiled a list of more than 400 missing people.
But since June, officers have been doing a slow, steady accounting of what happened that night. They searched every apartment and common area. They’ve reviewed 15.5 tons of debris. They’ve watched hours of security camera footage to identify who, exactly, managed to leave the tower that night. And they whittled down the missing persons reports. That initial list included multiple reports of the same people, with slight variations on the spelling of their names. It also included names fraudulently reported by criminals looking to cash in on the tragedy.
