A London high-rise building was evacuated on Monday after a fire broke out, amid suggestions that safety upgrades were not made in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
The 17th floor of the Crawford building, in Whitechapel, east London, caught fire at around 3.45pm and worried residents were quickly evacuated.
The fire, which appeared to spread over two floors, was tackled by more than 100 firefighters. There are not believed to have been any casualties.
Station Commander Chris Jenner, who was at the scene, said that a woman was trapped by the nature of the fire on the 17th floor.
"She was given fire survival advice by control officers until firefighters located her," he said. "Fire crews used a fire escape hood to help lead the woman to safety via the internal staircase.
"Around 60 people evacuated the building with others remaining in their unaffected flats."
Concerns were raised on Monday over the safety of the building, as residents reportedly said the balconies were made of timber and not replaced despite warnings in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
Other residents said they did not not hear fire alarms during the evacuation.
A 31-year-old resident, who asked not be named, said: "I was working on a call and all of a sudden I saw lots of smoke and someone banged on the door.
"One of the neighbours heard an explosion and saw big flames coming out of the window.
"Some of us didn’t hear the fire alarms either. We knew to get out of the building because of the smoke and the commotion, but we didn’t hear an alarm. I just heard two guys banging on the doors shouting."
Lynn Ling, a student at the London School of Economics who lives on the 20th floor with her husband, said she was alerted to the fire by a friend who FaceTimed her from the street at about 4:30pm.
"I did not hear an alarm. I think there was a fire alarm on the ground floor but I could not hear it clearly on the 20th," she said.
"I went out of my door but I found there was smoke in the corridor so I went downstairs.”
She added that a fireman on the 19th floor was knocking on people's doors to tell them to leave.
The building is a 22-storey block with 207 residential apartments, both private and social housing.
It is located over Aldgate East Tube Station between the City, the financial heart of London, and the neighbourhoods of Aldgate and Spitalfields.
A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade said: "Crews are tackling a fire on the 17th floor of the building. The Brigade's 64m ladder has been mobilised to the incident.
"The Brigade's 999 control officers have taken more than 50 calls to the blaze.
"The Brigade was called at 15.53. Fire crews from Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Dowgate, Bethnal Green, Dockhead, Old Kent Road, Islington and surrounding fire stations are at the scene.
"The cause of the fire is not known at this stage."
