2023-05-16 03:03:09
The words of emergency services manager Nick Pyatt show the extent of the tragedy: “A fire like this only happens once every 10 years in Wellington. This is the worst nightmare for us”. At least six people died on Tuesday in the fire of a hostel housing workers and disadvantaged people in the center of the New Zealand capital, according to the authorities.
“It’s an absolute tragedy,” said Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who said six deaths “have been confirmed. But it looks like there are probably more.” Six people were taken to hospital and 15 others were treated at the scene, according to Wellington Emergency Services. City Mayor Tory Whanau said she too expected the death toll to be “much higher” than six, calling the toll “absolutely staggering”.
Fire alarm failure
Smoke billowed from the four-story Loafers Lodge on Tuesday morning as 80 firefighters and 20 trucks battled the blaze. The emergency services estimate that around 90 people were in the hostel. Several of them are missing, and 52 were rescued, some of whom had taken refuge on the roof of the building and regained the ground by the large ladder of the firefighters.
“These people were going to perish without the intervention of our teams. Many are unscathed thanks to them”, welcomed on Radio New Zealand the deputy commander of the National Fire and Rescue Services, Brendan Nally. According to him, there were no sprinklers in the hostel and the fire alarm did not go off automatically.
“It was hard to breathe”
One of the hostel residents, named Chris, told public broadcaster TVNZ he crawled out of his room to escape the toxic smoke. “I went up to the stairwell. Everything was black and thick like smoke. It was hard to breathe. Everything has disappeared. My room was destroyed. I took my vaper and my phone but I left my shoes,” he said.
The hostel accommodates both long-term and short-term residents. According to the mayor of Wellington, some of them are vulnerable people, who live on low incomes or stay in a “transitional” way in New Zealand, a country where there is a housing crisis.
A police spokesperson also estimated that the final death toll should “not exceed 10”, stressing however that it would only be known once the firefighters could access the interior of the building. In the meantime, the cause of the fire remains for the moment “unexplained”, indicated the police who announced the opening of a joint investigation with the firefighters.
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