A blaze that ripped through an Antwerp apartment block early this morning has killed five people and left a community in mourning. But for British observers, the tragedy strikes a deeper chord: a haunting reminder of our own fire safety failures. As Belgian investigators sift through the charred remains, questions are already mounting about whether this could have been prevented.
And across the Channel, we are watching with a familiar dread. The fire broke out at around 3am on the third floor of a six-storey building in the Merksem district. Neighbours reported hearing screams before flames engulfed the stairwell, the only escape route for many residents.
Among the dead are a young family of three, including a four-year-old child. Two others perished on upper floors, trapped by the rapid spread of the inferno. Survivors describe a terrifying scramble to reach safety.
One woman, clutching her baby, told local media she climbed from her balcony to the one below while her neighbour held the infant. 'I thought we were going to die,' she said. 'The smoke was so thick.
' For British audiences, the parallels are uncomfortably close. The Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017 exposed the deadly consequences of inadequate fire safety measures in high-rise buildings. In its wake, the government promised reforms: stricter regulations on cladding and fire doors.
Yet four years on, thousands of buildings across the UK still have unsafe cladding. Campaigners warn that similar tragedies could happen here. The Antwerp fire may not have been in a tower block but it shared a crucial flaw: a single, unprotected stairwell that acted as a chimney for smoke and flames.
Belgian experts are already noting that the building lacked fire doors and a sprinkler system. In the UK, such omissions would be deemed criminal negligence after Grenfell. So why, as we mourn with Antwerp, are we still failing to learn the lessons?
The answer lies in a complex web of financial interests, bureaucratic inertia and a cultural reluctance to confront uncomfortable truths. Landlords resist the cost of retrofitting; politicians fear the backlash of regulation; and the public, distracted by other crises, looks away. But with every fire, the human cost becomes starker.
The victims in Antwerp were not just statistics. They were a mother, a father, a child, a grandmother and a young man starting his career. Their loss is a tragedy for Belgium but also a warning for Britain.
As investigators piece together the cause likely an electrical fault the real scandal is that such a fire could still happen. We know what needs to be done. Yet the yawning gap between promise and action remains.
For the British public, the Antwerp fire is not just a foreign tragedy. It is a mirror held up to our own unresolved failures. The question is: will we finally look into it, or look away?
