A couple’s wedding day is in jeopardy after they “lost everything” in the Dagenham tower block fire, including the bride-to-be’s wedding dress.

Lukasz and Agnieszka say they are “devastated because this should have been the best day of our lives, but everything in the building just burned down.”

They had picked up Agnieszka’s wedding dress just two days before the fire that ravaged her east London block of flats on Monday.

The couple said they were alerted to the fire by neighbours at around 03:00 CEST as they had not heard a fire alarm. They managed to escape from the building even though the nearest emergency exit was “completely locked”.

Speaking to BBC News outside a rest area for evacuated residents of a nearby leisure centre, Lukasz said they were now homeless and had “nothing left”.

“We don’t know what to say. In our situation, it’s hard to say anything,” he said. “Basically, we have nothing left.”

The couple were put up in a hotel for two nights after the fire, but “don’t know” what they will do next.

Lukasz added that the couple had “no money” after spending a considerable amount on their wedding day, which is scheduled to take place in two weeks, and taking out loans to cover the costs, among other things.

The wedding dress cost £2,500, he said.

At 02:45 BST, around 225 firefighters were dispatched to the Freshwater Road fire as the fire engulfed the building, including the surrounding scaffolding and roof.

More than 80 people were evacuated and two were taken to hospital. The London Fire Brigade (LFB) said all occupants of the building had been rescued.

The fire department has reported a major operation. The fire department has now suspended the operation, but the emergency services will remain on site on Tuesday, the fire department said.

The building has a number of fire safety issues known to the LFB and questions about the role of the cladding in the fire will form part of the wider investigation into the incident, said Patrick Goulbourne, deputy chief of the London Fire Brigade.

Lukasz said there were “major concerns about the building,” adding that neither he nor Agnieszka heard a fire alarm when the blaze broke out on Monday.

He said: “We lived on the second floor, in the last apartment, at the end of the building, and there was an emergency exit right below us, but it was closed, it was locked, completely locked, so we couldn’t escape that way. We had to go all the way around the building.”

“We came out, saw the smoke and just ran out. We couldn’t even breathe normally when we ran out.”

“When we left the building, fire was blazing from the roof.”

Agnieszka added: “Everyone was running, panicking, knocking and screaming to wake everyone up. Everyone was scared.”

The cause of the fire is not yet known, but According to a Facebook post by a building contractor The “non-compliant” cladding of the building was in the process of being removed.

A planning application also details the “remedial works” that will involve the removal and replacement of “non-compliant cladding” on the fifth and sixth floors, which house apartments.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said the incident exposed the “national scandal surrounding combustible cladding and deregulation in the construction industry” and called for an “urgent and swift investigation” into the fire.

Grenfell United – a campaign group supporting survivors and families of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire – said in a statement posted on social media that the Dagenham fire had highlighted “the lack of urgency on building safety”.

The group said the fact that the building had a number of fire safety problems “underscores the painfully slow progress of remediation efforts across the country” and called on the government to speed up the process.

In 2022, the government introduced the Construction Safety Act – in response to the Grenfell Tower fire in west London, which killed 72 people – ensured that most homeowners were protected from the cost of dangerous cladding.

The government also introduced a program that forces developers and social housing companies to replace unsafe cladding or risk the construction of residential properties in England is prohibited.

According to government figures released last week, by the end of July this year, 4,630 residential buildings 11 metres or more in height were found to have unsafe cladding.

In half of these buildings, the removal of cladding has begun or has already been completed. In only 29% of these buildings, the renovation work has been completed.

A final report on the Grenfell Tower investigation is available The release is planned for next week.