Twenty fire engines and 125 firefighters were called to a fire at a block of flats on Whitechapel High Street on Monday.
Crews tackled a fire on the 17th floor of the building. The London fire brigade mobilised its 64-metre ladder for the incident and said its control officers took more than 50 calls about the blaze.
The Metropolitan police said the building was being evacuated. By Monday evening, the fire appeared to be extinguished.
One woman had to be rescued after getting trapped on the 17th floor by the fire. Chris Jenner, a station commander who was at the scene, said the she was given fire survival advice by control officers until firefighters located her.
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,” a spokesperson said.
Firefighters were called at 3.53pm and crews from Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Dowgate, Bethnal Green, Dockhead, Old Kent Road, Islington and surrounding fire stations were at the scene. A London fire brigade spokesperson said the cause of the fire was “not known at this stage”.
The London ambulance service advised people in Whitechapel to keep their windows closed and stay indoors as fire crews tackled the blaze. A spokesperson said: “We sent an ambulance crew, an incident response officer, a team leader in a fast response car and members of our hazardous area response team.”
LAS took one patient to hospital, and crews checked a small number of people at the scene.
Transport for London’s incident response team also attended the scene.
Eyewitnesses at the scene said glass panels were seen to be falling to the ground from a height of about 100 metres.
The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said he was in “close contact” with the London fire brigade commissioner, Andy Roe.
The structure, called the Relay building, is a 21-storey housing development that is run by three different companies – John D Wood, Network Homes and Rendall & Rittner.
According to Hondo Enterprises, which sold the building in 2018, it is a mixed-use development consisting of more than 7,000 sq ft of retail area, 97,000 sq ft of commercial office space and 207 residential flats.
It is located above Aldgate East tube station, between the City of London and the neighbourhoods of Aldgate and Spitalfields.
A spokesperson for Network Homes said: “We’re pleased to see everyone has been safely evacuated from the building.
“Network Homes is a leaseholder of 75 flats across floors seven to 11 of this building. Overall responsibility for the building lies with the freeholder, and we actively engage with their managing agent on fire safety measures.”
• This article was amended on 8 March 2022. Hondo Enterprises sold the building in 2018, but was not the property developer as an earlier version said.
