Police say the number is expected to rise.
Others were more sympathetic.
A massive fire raced through a high-rise apartment building in west London early on Wednesday, sending at least 30 people to hospitals, emergency officials said.
London Ambulance Service said more than 50 people had been taken to hospital.
Some said they saw people jump from the building to try to get to safety.
"In my 29 years of firefighting I have seen nothing of this scale", Cotton says.
Flames and smoke were still shooting from the windows of the Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, west London, more than four hours after the blaze started around 1 a.m. London time.
Around 200 firefighters, 40 fire trucks and 20 ambulance crews were at the scene at the height of the blaze.
- "Saw people jumping out" -Two eyewitnesses told the Press Association news agency they saw children dropped by their parents into the arms of people on the ground. "Just complete nightmare, absolute nightmare", recounts Littlejohn.
"Equally, the cause of this fire is not known at this stage".
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Once the fire has been put out and Britain has begun to count the terrible human cost of the tragedy, questions will undoubtedly arise about how such a fire started, and how it was able to spread so quickly, in 21st century Britain. High-rise buildings are typically created to contain fire outbreaks within floors, so it is often safer to stay in an apartment unaffected by a blaze.
Nassima Boutrig, who lives opposite the building, said she was awakened by sirens and smoke so thick that it filled her home as well.
Prime Minister Theresa May was said to be "deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life" and newly appointed police and fire minister Nick Hurd will chair a meeting of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat to co-ordinate the response. It was fire up, up, up. "But the smoke covered them and then the fire destroyed everything".
Inside, those who lived nearby huddled around a TV in the bar on Wednesday morning, anxiously asking after friends they had yet to hear from.
"I'll be asking questions raised by the fire last night...that demand answer", London's mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC, adding that for now the focus would be on recovery and providing shelter to those who had been forced to flee their homes. Exhausted firefighters sprawled on the pavement just inside the police cordon, drinking water from plastic bottles.
Transport for London said there was no service between Hammersmith and Edgware Road on the Circle and Hammersmith and City lines, while the police said the A40 was closed in both directions, owing to the fire.
London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton told reporters: "This is an unprecedented incident".
"Crews wearing breathing apparatus and extended duration breathing apparatus have been working in extremely challenging and hard conditions to rescue people and bring this major fire under control", Cotton said.
"The guys are doing an incredible job to try and get people out that building, but it's truly terrible".
This handout image received by local resident Giulio Thuburn early on June 14, 2017 shows flames engulfing a 27-storey block of flats in west London.
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