New Zealand police are treating a deadly hostel fire as suspicious as a grim search of the 92-room building resumes on Wednesday.
Six bodies have been found so far, but people remain missing after the country’s worst blaze since 1995.
Authorities have confirmed no Australians were involved in the tragedy in Wellington overnight Monday.
The death toll is expected to rise as a search of the building, which was fully occupied, continues.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the four-storey hostel was not legally required to have a sprinkler system.
“The building code does not require the retrofitting of sprinkler systems into existing, older buildings,” Mr Hipkins said on Tuesday.
“For older buildings there are fewer requirements than for newer buildings and so people who have apartments and so on where they’ve been there for a long time, there may not be sprinklers required for those.”
Wellington City Council confirmed the lodge had passed a building inspection in March, with no concerns raised.
Since the fire was doused, technical teams have been working to secure the building for the bodies to be recovered and for the police to begin an investigation.
“We are working tirelessly alongside our partners, alongside our other agencies to find the answers that we need,” acting district commander Dion Bennett said.
“This requires an extensive scene examination and as you can see the building is large and the damage is extensive.
“Once inside, we will work as quickly as we can.”
Police hope to gain the all-clear to enter late on Wednesday morning.
Alongside the effort to access the four-storey building are six police personnel working to reconcile a list of residents and people inside the building at the time of the blaze.
Some people remain unaccounted for, though officials have not said how many.
The Loafers Lodge had a mix of short-term and longer stay occupants, including shift workers from the nearby Wellington Hospital, welfare recipients and those under corrections orders.
Corrections Department spokeswoman Brittany McNamara said nine people on a community sentence order were living at the hostel. Two of them were still missing.
The disaster is NZ’s deadliest building fire since 1995, when a deliberately lit fire inside the New Empire Hotel in Hamilton, south of Auckland, killed six people including one who jumped from the building.
Should officials confirm two more deaths, it will be the country’s worst since 1947 when 41 people died in the Ballantynes department store in Christchurch.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese offered Australian assistance in the recovery effort, though it is not yet clear whether that will be taken up by Kiwi officials.
Australia experienced a similar tragedy in Childers, Queensland, where 15 people – most of whom were foreign travellers – died in the burning of the Palace Backpackers Hostel in 2000.
No Australians
The New Zealand foreign affairs ministry has advised the Australian government that no citizens were affected but there will be updates as new information emerges.
The Australian foreign affairs department has received no calls for consular assistance.
“We are deeply shocked and saddened by news of the fire at the Loafers Lodge Hostel in Wellington overnight,” a department spokesperson said on Tuesday night.
“The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed that police have not identified any Australian citizens who have been impacted.”
Mr Albanese described the fire as a “dreadful human tragedy”. He said he had spoken with Mr Hipkins following the fire and offered Australian assistance.
“This is a dreadful human tragedy. I expressed my condolences on behalf of Australia to our friends in New Zealand at this very difficult time,” Mr Albanese said.
“Any assistance of course will, as always, be available from Australia to New Zealand at what is a very difficult time.
“It is clear that there have been a number of deaths, the exact number may well rise.”
Opposition trade spokesman Simon Birmingham said Australians would join in sending condolences to New Zealanders affected by the event.
“This is a terrible tragedy and one that will be felt particularly right across New Zealand but especially so in the small community of Wellington,” he told Sky News.
“It’s a big task of recovery when we see a loss of life at such scale and there will be so many families, so many people affected.”
