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June was merciless in its shock and trauma. Just as Londoners – in all their rich diversity – had begun to absorb the terrible details of one outrage, they’d wake up to some new horror.
Terrorist attacks and a devastating fire are seared into our memories: the volley of police shots at Borough Market repeated on TV, and the screams for help from blazing Grenfell Tower heard in mobile phone recordings posted to social media. At least 89 people dead altogether.
Then there was the election result. Less traumatic, of course, but still, another shock. This is probably how historians will remember this time – Theresa May, barely clinging to power, and starting negotiations to take Britain out of the European Union.
It began on Saturday, June 3, on London Bridge when a white van rammed into pedestrians and then was left abandoned. Three men descended into the warren of Borough Market and its tourist pubs and restaurants. The men carried long knives strapped to their wrists and stabbed anyone in sight.
Police Constable Wayne Marques heard a woman scream, got his baton out and charged. He was knifed in the head – just by his right eye – but somehow survived with multiple injuries. “My one aim was to keep people alive,” he said. “Just keep people alive.”
The Grenfell Tower fire in west London claimed the most lives (at least 80). The 24-story tower block was rapidly engulfed in flames in the early hours of Wednesday, June 14.
Burning debris falls from Grenfell Tower as a massive fire engulfs the London apartment building early on June 14, 2017. Seventy-two people are confirmed to have died in the fire.
Rex Features via AP Images
Smoke rises from Grenfell Tower hours after the fire.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
A woman cries as she tries to locate a missing relative.
AFP/Getty Images
A woman runs near paramedics working near the fire.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images
Witnesses reported terrifying accounts of people trapped in the tower. Some people were reported to have jumped from the tower.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images
People watch as Grenfell Tower is engulfed by fire.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images
Emergency service members work at the scene.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images
Residents of nearby Whitchurch Road watch smoke streaming from the tower.
Sarah Tilotta for CNN
Emergency personnel prepare in an open area near the blaze.
FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA
People watch as smoke rises from the tower.
Sarah Tilotta/CNN
Michael Paramasivan and his daughter Thea Kavanagh managed to escape the fire.
Victoria Jones/PA Wire/AP
Police officers asked people to step back so they could expand the cordon and make more space for emergency services.
Sarah Tilotta for CNN
Police stand near debris from the fire.
Salma Abdelaziz/CNN
A security cordon holds people back as Grenfell Tower burns.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images
Children wear masks that were distributed near the site of the fire.
Sarah Tilotta/CNN
The building, built in the 1970s, was home to 125 families.
Kyodo News/Sipa USA
Emergency services respond to the fire.
Epics//Getty Images
Firefighters battle the massive blaze.
Natalie Oxford/Twitter
Smoke could be seen billowing over the heads of residents who gathered in nearby streets to watch the blaze.
Sarah Tilotta for CNN
Residents from nearby Barandon Walk wait outside their building. The building was evacuated around 2 a.m. Police told residents that heat emanating from the fire could affect the structure of their building.
Sarah Tilotta for CNN
Witness Michael Kyriakou told CNN the fire spread quickly, with one side of the building ablaze around 15 minutes after it started. "Within an hour it had engulfed the top part of the building," he said. "There are people in bathrobes and slippers all around us, so hopefully as many as possible got out."
Matt Dunham/AP
Fire engulfs West London apartment block
You couldn’t escape the horror of it, the images of a tower turned in minutes into an incinerator. The emergency services received more than 600 calls that night from people trapped inside. Walls and railings remain festooned with photos of the missing. People are still laying fresh flowers.
And finally, there’s a small shrine – flowers and scribbled notes – on a corner of an anonymous lane just off the busy Seven Sisters Road in Finsbury Park, north London. In the early hours of Monday, June 19, a white van veered into the lane and plowed into a group of mostly Somali worshippers standing on the corner. One man was killed and 10 others injured.
June in London has been a month of chilling stories, sounds and images. But there have been some redeeming moments and much heroism. At Finsbury Park, we were reminded of Londoners’ common humanity – that communities here happily live side by side.
The Somali owner of a nearby café, Abdul Muridi, was quickly on the scene. Muridi, 29, was the first to spot that one of his fellow Somalis had been trapped under the van with serious injuries. It took some 30 men to lift the vehicle, including three tattooed white Londoners. Muridi called them over to help. He didn’t know their names, but he was grateful they lent a hand.
