The fire occurred early Wednesday morning, quickly spreading through the 20 storey block.
Reports suggest that a renovation project on Grenfell Tower a year ago intentionally did not include safety devices such as sprinklers and doors created to keep the fire from spreading. Britain's Press Association says around 70 people are missing.
Cundy added that it will take weeks or longer to recover and identify all the dead in the housing block that was devastated.
"Sadly at this time, there are 58 people who we have been told were in Grenfell Tower on the night that are missing and therefore sadly I have to assume that they are dead", Commander Stuart Cundy told reporters on Saturday, adding that the figure could change. "So that 58 would include that 30", he said. Those families who have not yet had a family liaison officer deployed to support them will be contacted by police throughout the course of this afternoon.
He says it may be necessary for numerous outmoded tower blocks built in the 1970s to be demolished because of safety concerns. Cundy said emergency workers have now reached the top of the tower.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, facing criticism for the government's handling of the disaster, met Saturday with a small group of fire survivors invited to her official residence at 10 Downing Street.
On Saturday May spent over two hours meeting residents from the north Kensington area at her Downing Street residence and chaired a meeting on the government's response to the fire.
There have been huge frustrations that people do not know who to talk to, that they can't get through on the council hotlines.
Scotland 2-2 England
I was trying to get a good contact on it and side-footed into the net", he said . "It's a disappointing one ". I didn't want to lose my first game as England captain, especially against Scotland .
In a statement issued after the visit, Mrs May said: "Frankly, the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough".
The identification of the victims is proving very hard - which experts attribute to the extreme heat of the fire. Police said 19 injured in the fire remain hospitalized, including 10 who were in critical condition. This relies on dental records, fingerprints and DNA when possible and also features like tattoos or scars. They paid their respects before the start of the annual Trooping the Color procession that marks the observance of the queen's birthday.
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip have observed a minute of silence to honor the victims of the London high-rise fire.
Mrs May was greeted with cries of "coward" and "shame on you" as she returned to the site of the devastating fire in west London on Friday.
In a television interview Friday, she sidestepped questions over whether she had misread the public mood.
Hundreds have been left homeless by the blaze, putting more pressure on officials in a city already plagued by a chronic housing shortage.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered a judge- led full public inquiry into the incident.
Comments