New Zealand police arrest man for arson over deadly hostel blaze

New Zealand police have said that they have arrested and charged a man with two counts of arson after a hostel fire in the capital, Wellington, killed at least six people this week.

A blaze broke out on the top floor of the Loafers Lodge in the suburb of Newtown in the early hours of Tuesday, causing extensive structural damage to the four-storey, 92-room building that hampered efforts to get inside.

In a statement posted on Facebook, police on Thursday said they could not rule out charging the man with further offences.

“The investigation into the fire is ongoing and police have not ruled out further, more serious charges in relation to the deaths at the scene,” they said in the statement.

The authorities opened a homicide inquiry on Wednesday after saying that arson was suspected.

Hours before announcing they had arrested and charged the man, police removed the first two bodies from the charred interior of the Loafers Lodge hostel.

Inspector Dion Bennett, acting Wellington district commander, said a reconnaissance team had conducted an initial preparatory examination of the building and expected to be able to bring out a further two bodies on Friday.

“The scene examination is expected to take several days,” Bennett said, adding that police did not know how many people had died in the fire.

According to emergency officials, the hostel was not fitted with fire sprinklers.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the nation’s building codes did not require sprinklers in older buildings where they would need to be retrofitted.

“I have asked the minister for housing to look particularly at issues around building regulations to see whether there’s anything more that we should be doing right at this point,” Hipkins told reporters on Wednesday.

One of the survivors, Simon Hanify, told AFP he only escaped by chance.

Smoke alarms in the building often went off without reason, he said.

“I wasn’t even going to leave my room. But I felt like a cigarette. I thought I’d go outside because I usually share them with other people,” Hanify said on Wednesday.

“There was smoke coming down the stairwell, on the ceiling and our hallway,” he said.