A 7-month-old Filipina baby was rushed to a hospital for slight suffocation and drowsiness, following a fire that razed the 24-story Grenfell Tower in London on Wednesday.
A Filipina nurse said the baby is well and should be discharged soon, according to ABS-CBN Europe News bureau chief Danny Buenafe.Senen Mangalile, consul general of the Philippine Embassy in London, confirmed the report.
Senen Mangalile, consul general of the Philippine Embassy in London, confirmed the report.
“A Filipina baby was brought to the hospital for smoke inhalation but yeah, the baby is now well and set to be discharged and reunited with the parents,” Mangalile told ABS-CBN News Channel.
Buenafe said the tower’s Filipino residents were known to live in the upper floors, according to a source.
He added that some Filipino residents of the tower are currently at an evacuation center in Rugby Clubs, Notting Hill.
The Philippine Embassy in London earlier said several Filipinos were among 70 people hurt in the incident.
At least 12 people have died in the blaze, according to The Guardian.
Mangalile said they are still collating information on the Filipino victims.
“What we would not want to do is to double count. We’ve been very careful with the data that we get and unfortunately the emergency services are not releasing any names or any figures at the moment,” he said.
Mangalile said Filipino evacuees from the tower block are currently at three evacuation centers.
“Sa ngayon po ay wala pa tayong eksaktong bilang kasalukuyan pong umiikot ang ating assistance to nationals team sa mga ospital upang tiyakin kung ilan sa mga kababayan natin ang naka-confine doon. Doon naman po sa mga evacuation centers na binuksan ng council ay meron pong mga 8 pamilya na nakausap kanina at yung iba sa kanila ay mga mga kamag-anak din na hinahanap sa ospital,” he also said on Bandila.
(Right now, we don;t have an exact number. Our team is making rounds in the hospital to confirm how many of our countrymen are there. In the evacuation centres opened by the council, we talked to eight families
Mangalile said there are around 4,000 Filipinos in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
More than 200 firefighters, backed up by 40 fire engines, fought for hours to try to bring the blaze, one of the biggest seen in central London in memory, under control.
By midday, London police said six people had been killed and they cautioned the death toll was likely to rise.
Police Commander Stuart Cundy said a “recovery operation” could take some time and there could be people in the building who are unaccounted for, though he would not be drawn on a figure.
Firefighting crews still had to reach the top four floors of the building where several hundred people live in 130 apartments.
The cause of the inferno, which left the tower block a charred, smoking shell, was not immediately known. – with reports from Danny Buenafe, ABS-CBN News; Reuters
This story first appeared on ABS-CBN News and is republished with permission.
