Survivors awoken by screams

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 1

Survivors awoken by screams

By

ASHLEY CAMPBELL

Screams awoke one of the survivors of the Westport Unemployment Centre fire on Friday night. Mr John Hubert, of Seddonville, said he was awakened by screaming, as he was asleep in a mezzanine-floor room. He rushed to a bay window that was being altered and tried to rip out a temporary window, but it would not move. “Then a cloud of ash hit me in the face,” Mr Hubert said. “It burned my

hair. After that I went went straight for the window. Mr Hubert and an Israeli tourist sleeping in the same room, Mr Asher Nachmany, escaped the fire by jumping out a window. The three persons sleeping on the floor above them died. Mr Hubert said he did not know if the screams came from people still inside the building. “I didn’t realise there were people still in there. I thought there were people screaming out the front.”

Mr Nachmany said that when he woke up, everything was black.

“I saw John — he was at the window at the time. I remember just grabbing my sleeping bag and going in the same direction.”

Mr Nachmany lost all his belongings in the fire. His passport, clothes, and about sAustsoo were all burnt.

He hoped that the Government would grant him a work permit, so that he could earn some money to continue his travels.

"I don’t want to get anything from anyone. I want to work for it.” Mr Nachmany has been in New Zealand for four weeks. Friday night was the first night he had spent at the centre.

Neither of the survivors knew any of the victims well. Messrs Hubert and Nachmany said they hadspoken to the victims for a few minutes that day but had not met them before.