Grenfell Tower fire survivors from 22nd floor on final phone call: 'I don't know if I'll make it out. I love you.'

The women told themselves that the bodies of victims on the stairwell were piles of clothes, to stop themselves from being paralysed by fear.

Friends launched crowdfunding page to help couple 'rebuild their lives' after losing their home (JustGiving)

The last survivors to emerge safely from the 22nd floor of Grenfell Tower have spoken of their fear and doubt when they decided to make their escape.

Naomi Li, 32, and her cousin, Lydia Liao, 23, survived by placing a wet towel and cardigan over their faces and groping their way down the stairwell from near the top of the 60m high rise.

The women told themselves that the bodies of victims on the stairwell were piles of clothes, to stop themselves from being paralysed by fear.

“I count myself lucky every day,” Ms Li told The Sunday Times. “I will always be haunted by the images I saw that night.”

Ms Li wrote in a Facebook post that she smelt smoke around 1am just before she was going to bed.

She dialled 999 and was told there was a fire and she should stay in the flat. She and her cousin were invited into another neighbour’s flat on a part of the same floor that still had clean air.

Ms Li phoned her husband, Lee Li-Chapman, 29, who was on a business trip abroad and who was forced to watch the fire unfold on the news as he spoke to his wife.

Just after 3am, with no sign of firefighters, and the room full with smoke, an emergency operator advised the residents to escape immediately. Her neighbours decided to stay – she said they were screaming and praying – and she remembered a young child standing by the window, crying.

Ms Li phoned her husband and told him, “We are going down, but I don’t know if we will make it or not. I love you.”

Ms Li told her cousin to take one last breath of clean air from the window and she led the way down the stairwell of dense smoke, feeling they were being “choked” with each breath.

The women reached the fifth or sixth floor, nearing the point of collapse, when they met firefighters who helped them out the building.

“I think we were some of the last people to come out by foot that night,” she said. “Most people after us were being taken out on stretchers. Thirty seconds or a minute later and I don’t think we would have made it.”

They were treated for smoke inhalation by paramedics and given oxygen, and Ms Li then phoned her husband, who was amazed that she had survived.

The couple, who studied for a PhD in geomatic engineering at University College London, discovered two of their neighbouring families with young children were reported missing.

Friends have set up a crowdfunding page to raise money for the couple who lost most of their possessions.

At least 80 people have died in the fire. Emergency services warned some of the victims would never be identified due to the intensity of the blaze.