Grenfell Tower fire inquiry opens in London with tributes to 72 victims

LONDON - The inquiry into the June 2017 Grenfell Tower on Monday kicked off in London, with tributes from friends and relatives to 72 victims in the disaster.

The first substantive hearings of the inquiry into the tragedy began almost a year after the fire. Seventy-two people died after fire swept through Grenfell Tower in west London on June 14 last year.

For the next two weeks, the lives of those who died will be remembered in a series of commemorations delivered in the form of video recordings and personal statements. The proceedings will be streamed live on the inquiry's website.

The parents of a baby who was stillborn after the Grenfell Tower fire paid tribute to him as the inquiry into the disaster began.

Logan Gomes was stillborn at King's College Hospital after his parents and two sisters escaped from the 21st floor of the tower block suffering from severe smoke inhalation.

The initial sessions are being held in a conference centre at the Millennium Gloucester hotel, in South Kensington, London, where counselling support and the British National Health Service (NHS) teams are on hand to help survivors of the fire and the bereaved.

The main evidence-collecting sessions will commence on June 4 with detailed outlines from lawyers representing the inquiry as well as the organisations and individuals who have been granted core participant status.

The rest of the inquiry, which is expected to run into next year, will be held at Holborn Bars on High Holborn, near the Inns of Court and the legal heart of London, organisers said.

There will be no hearings during the week of the fire's anniversary on June 14, and the inquiry will resume the following week with presentations by several expert witnesses, they added.