Two Australians were among the 71 victims who died in the Grenfell Tower fire in London in June last year, the Foreign Affairs Department has confirmed.

Alexandra Atala, 40, and her mother, Victoria King, 71, had been named in media reports as the two Australians found dead in their 20th-floor flat after the blaze engulfed a 24-storey social housing block in west London, in the country’s deadliest fire since World War II.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) can confirm that two Australian citizens died in the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017,” the Department said in a statement.

The two women were “devoted to each other”, according to a family statement issued soon after the fire and reported across media outlets.

“We were devastated to hear of our sister Vicky’s fate, and that of her daughter, Alexandra, in the Grenfell Tower tragedy,” they said.

“Some comfort can come from the knowledge that she and Alexandra were devoted to one another and spent so many mutually supportive years together.”

The delay in identifying the victims is understood to be the result of investigations by UK authorities and a decision of the family.