MP Harriet Harman said yesterday’s fire, which killed six people, including a newborn baby, raised questions over the safety of the tower block.

Ms Harman claims people may have been trapped in the burning building because of its poor design and lack of escape routes.

A four-year-old and two adults were killed in the blaze, while a three-week-old baby, a three-year-old and a woman rescued from the Lakanal Flats, in Camberwell, South London, later died in hospital.

The fire started in a flat on the fourth floor of the 12-storey building, which has just one central stairwell, before rapidly spreading upwards.

Speaking at the scene today Ms Harman, who is the MP for Camberwell and Peckham, said she had spoken to residents who had found their escape route from the building blocked.

She said: “There will have to be a thorough investigation into what caused this fire and whether the prevention was adequate.

“There are many blocks with one central stairwell and questions will have to be asked about what happens when a fire breaks out.”

Harman, who is also Leader of the House of Commons, added: “I met someone in her 70s who was trapped for 30 minutes with smoke seeping under door because she couldn’t get to the central stairwell.

“The fire was between her and the way out of the building.”

Carol Cooper, 38, who lives on the seventh floor, described the complicated layout of Lakanal Flats as a maze and said she saw trapped “people and children waving for help”.

“Everyone was here, but it took too long for them to get in there and do something.

“I think that’s because it’s just like a maze in there.”

Ms Cooper claims the tenants had called for the block to be demolished three years ago but had been told it was a listed building, one of the earliest council houses in south-east London and could not be knocked down.

Instead, the council fitted new windows and electrical cabling.

Another seventh floor resident Ed Hammond, 37, an accountant, said the flats were “death traps”.

He added: “If the fire is in the central area, you would virtually have nowhere to go,” he said.

“I hate it,” he said. “It’s the safety, it’s just not right.”

Ian Wingfield, a local Labour councillor and the spokesperson for public housing in the borough, said he believed it was the “worst tower block disaster in history”.

Calling for a full public investigation into such housing across the country he said: “We’re living in the 21st century and people are still living in housing like this.

“Unless we get that investigated, people lives are under threat.”

“We need to ensure justice is given for these needless deaths and insure that nothing like this happens again.”

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