Posted June 15, 2017 12:39:55

Photo: Impromptu relief centres quickly filled with donated items after an earlier callout on social media. (AP: Frank Augstein)

Councils have asked people to stop donating items for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, that killed at least 12 people and left more than 68 in hospital, after they were "inundated" with donations.

The Kensington and Chelsea Council asked its Twitter followers to, "please hold off from donating any more from now".

Calls for donations had gone out earlier in the afternoon and residents sprung into action, offering clothes, blankets, food and other daily supplies.

Impromptu relief centres that had been set up in many neighbourhoods across London to accommodate the survivors soon began filing up with items.

The fire broke out just before 1:00am (local time) on Wednesday and tore through the 24-storey apartment tower where about 600 people were said to live. So far, many remain missing and those who escaped were deeply worried about the fate of their loved ones.

Witnesses to the inferno described seeing people trapped in the building and there were reports witnesses had heard people crying for help and jumping from windows.

With the fire still burning 16 hours after it started, neighbours began helping survivors with clothing, food and water as well as offering shelter.

Churches and a nearby mosque also served as gathering points for donations for those who raced out of the burning building in the middle of the night, fleeing with little else than the clothes in which they slept.

Photo: Piles of emergency supplies were offered on the footpath near the Grenfell Tower. (AP: Frank Augstein)

Celebrities directed people to locations where they could donate.

Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson urged people via Twitter to "give what you can spare" and chef Jamie Oliver wrote in an Instagram post that his restaurant in Westfield, Shepherd's Bush, would provide food and drinks to families victim to the fire free of charge.

"To any of the hundreds of families effected by this terrible fire at Grenfell Tower Notting Hill today, you are all welcome to come hang out in my restaurant and be fed and watered by my team," Oliver wrote.

Social media sites also joined the effort, with some Londoners offering a space on their sofas for those affected by the blaze — London's deadliest in a generation.

ABC/AP

Topics: disasters-and-accidents, community-and-society, charities, united-kingdom