Hours after firefighters finally put out the blaze, smoke was still rising from the roof of the Loafers Lodge in Wellington, and the smell of burning remained. Firefighters guided a drone through the clear skies, trying to calculate the extent of the building’s collapse, while the bodies of at least six people lay inside the hostel’s walls, unable to be retrieved.
On the top floor, the ageing brown exterior was stained black by smoke, the paint blistered and peeling from the heat, with windows smashed out and empty. It was from these fourth floor windows that Tala Sili jumped, realising that his only options were to take the fall or die in the flames.
