Victim No115 is identified

The last unknown identity of a victim of the 1987 King's Cross Tube fire was officially confirmed today.

Everyone else was identified following the blaze in which 31 people died.

But for 16 years the remains of one victim was known simply as 115 - the number given to the body in the mortuary.

Forensic experts from British Transport police have now concluded that he was 72-year-old Alexander Fallon.

They now know that Mr Fallon's life disintegrated after the death of his wife from ovarian cancer in 1974.

He sold his house in Falkirk and moved to London in the early 1980s.

He kept in contact with two daughters in Scotland and two in the US while living rough but was not heard of or claimed social security since the day of the fire.

A reconstruction of the head of 115 by forensic experts bore enough of a resemblance to Mr Fallon to put police on the right trail.

Investigations revealed that Mr Fallon had undergone brain surgery, requiring the placing of a clip on his skull, as had 115, and both were about 5ft 2in.

Even Interpol was involved in the long search for the identity of 115, checking dental records.

The fire started at about 7.30pm on 18 November in rubbish which had accumulated under a wooden escalator after a passenger is believed to have thrown away a cigarette or match. The escalator ran between the Piccadilly line and the mainline station. King's Cross, London's busiest station, was full of commuters at the tail end of the rush hour.

Terrified passengers had to contend with a fireball that engulfed the ticket hall which filled with black smoke.

The smoke could be seen coming out of the station's street-level entrances from where people emerged as fire crews raced to tackle the blaze.

More than 150 firefighters tackled the blaze and searched for survivors. A fireman was one of those who died.

Many passengers were trapped underground as the escalator went up in flames.

A fire brigade spokesman at the time, Brian Clark, said the scene in the concourse at the top of the escalator was one of total devastation. Tiles had come off walls and concrete was damaged because of the intense heat.

Smoking on the Underground had been banned in 1985 after a fire at Oxford Circus station, but smokers often lit cigarettes on the escalators on their way out.

Smoking anywhere in the Underground and in the trains, has since been banned, while King's Cross has been rebuilt.