London: The residents of roughly 800 apartments in London have been evacuated due to fire-safety concerns.
Many are being housed Saturday in temporary shelters. The unusual evacuation follows the fire that claimed at least 79 lives in a London high-rise last week.
That fire in the Grenfell tower block was found to have been spread by a type of exterior cladding also found on the buildings that were evacuated.
Camden Council in north London started the evacuation Friday night so urgent safety upgrades could begin.
Officials say they acted because fire officials said they could not guarantee the safety of residents. Similar inspections are ongoing elsewhere in Britain on hundreds of buildings.
Some residents of the Camden buildings expressed frustration with the lack of information about the evacuations.
Amid chaotic scenes, residents clutching children, pets and small amounts of clothing and food emerged from five tower blocks to sleep on air beds in a local sports centre after hearing on the news that their buildings were being evacuated.
Fire checks have been carried out on some high-rise buildings across England after a fire ravaged Grenfell tower block in west London last week.
"I know it's difficult but Grenfell changes everything," Georgia Gould, Leader of Camden Council, said in a statement late on Friday. "I don't believe we can take any risks with our residents' safety."
Police investigating the cause of the deadly 24-storey Grenfell Tower blaze have said the fire started in a fridge but spread rapidly due to the use of external cladding on the building, trapping residents in their beds as they slept.
The cladding has since failed all safety checks.
The fire has become a flashpoint for public anger at Prime Minister Theresa May's record in government and cuts to local authority budgets. Grenfell Tower is situated in Kensington, one of the richest boroughs in Europe.
Battling to save her position after losing her majority in a June 8 election, May has promised to do everything she can to protect those residents who survived the fire and to improve the quality and safety of public housing in Britain.
The London Fire Brigade said it had found a number of fire safety issues at the Chalcots Estate in Camden, north London, and advised that residents should leave the building until they were resolved.
Residents complained of first hearing about the evacuation from the media and getting very short notice to leave from city officials going door to door. Not all residents agreed to go.
The council's leader, Gould, said it would take up to four weeks to repair the blocks that were evacuated and said that some 4,000 residents were affected.
"It was farcical communication," 21-year-old Daniel Tackaberry told Reuters outside a nearby sports centre where the local council had laid out air beds for people for whom they could not find hotels.
"You don't get everyone to leave this quickly." British police have said they are considering bringing manslaughter charges over the Grenfell fire, the most deadly blaze in London since the Second World War.
Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack was asked on Friday whether the insulation and aluminium tiles used on Grenfell were acceptable for such buildings. "No they're not," she said.
"All I can say at the moment is they don't pass any of the safety tests. So that will form part of what is a manslaughter investigation." As well as possible manslaughter, police will consider health and safety offences and breaches of other building regulations.
