Police has said that the death toll in the London Grenfell Tower fire has risen to 30.

A criminal inquiry has been launched into the incident.

Police said some of the dead may never be identified, as officers warned that the painful process of retrieving the victims could take months.

Among those still missing are entire families, a six-month-old baby, a young Italian couple, and a five-year-old boy, reports the Guardian.

The criminal probe was launched after it emerged that cladding, used on Grenfell Tower is banned in the United States, and that it would have cost just 5,000 pounds extra for the contractors to apply a fire-resistant version of panelling to the building, according to a report by The Independent.

The panels, believed to have been fitted to the outside of Grenfell Tower, are produced by US company Reynobond, which makes three types of panel: one with a flammable plastic core and two with fire-resistant cores.

It is thought that contractors chose the cheaper, more combustible version for Grenfell, which has a polyethylene core and is known as PE. -- ANI