NZ bomb blast couple remain in Middle East

1.00pm

New Zealand navy officer Hugh Aitken, hurt in a terrorist bomb blast at an Egyptian hotel on Friday, has yet to decide when he will come home.

Lieutenant Commander Aitken and his wife Geraldine were in their second floor room at the Taba Hilton in the border resort town when a car bomb exploded near the front lobby, killing at least 33 people.

The balcony at the front of their room absorbed most of the blast and two layers of heavy curtains prevented potentially fatal glass shards from flying through their room, Lieutenant Commander Aitken told a colleague.

He needed stitches to a large cut in his leg and Mrs Aitken got facial injuries.

A Defence spokeswoman said Lieutenant Commander Aitken told her on Saturday that had it not been for the balcony and the heavy drapes they had just pulled, they both could have died.

"He said to me 'Thank God for the balcony' which absorbed a lot of the blast. There was no balcony there afterwards."

She said it was not too dramatic to say they could both have easily died in the blast.

"The room disintegrated around them and they had to move stuff to get out. The doors had blown in, the sub ceiling fell in. Everything just collapsed in on them."

The couple had been on leave in Egypt. Lieutenant Commander Aitken was force liaison officer with the multi national force and observers to the Sinai where New Zealand has had a military presence since 1982.

He was due to return to New Zealand early next month but the spokeswoman said the couple had not decided if they would continue their holiday or come home immediately.

- NZPA