Three killed after car smashes into sheltered housing block in London
Emergency services find vehicle in flames
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Three people have died after a car crashed into a residential block in west London, the Metropolitan Police said.
Officers and emergency crews were called to Great Western Road, Westminster, at around 4.50am and found the vehicle on fire.
Three people in the vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene after the flames were extinguished.
Police are working to inform their families, and have asked for any witnesses or those with dashcam footage to come forward.
No other cars are thought to have been involved in the crash, and a number of residents from the supported housing block were evacuated as a precaution.
The car appears to have smashed into the railings outside the building on the corner of Great Western Road and Woodfield Place.
Pictures show Great Western Road cordoned off from a bridge – situated after Westbourne Park Station – that goes over the Grand Union Canal, with the road closed up to Harrow Road.
London Fire Brigade said firefighters tackled the fire and led nine people to safety from the sheltered housing block via an internal staircase.
Four fire engines – from North Kensington, Kensington and Paddington fire stations – were at the scene along with two fire rescue units, it added.
Manuel Gaspar, manager of the Transparent World cleaning company, which is situated opposite the site of the crash, said he was woken by the “awful” sound of the car smashing into the care home.
He told the Standard that smoke from the car was going into the sheltered housing block.
It is not clear whether the housing association-run sheltered housing block is for people aged over 60, or for people with learning disabilities – but Mr Gaspar said that “elderly people” live there.
Mr Gaspar added: “The impact was awful. There was debris spread all over the road.
“We saw a neighbour who was very brave. He had just woken up and didn’t have a shirt on and was trying to get into the passenger door. All the other doors were stuck or too damaged.
“He was shouting asking the people inside if they could untie their seatbelts but he was getting no response ... [but] they might have been dead already.”
Anyone with information can call police on 101 quoting the reference CAD 917/14 Sept.