Major calls wife just after blast

New Zealand Army Major Todd Hart phoned his wife in Palmerston North from a bomb site in Iraq yesterday to say he had survived the massive suicide attack.

The engineer suffered a broken arm, cuts and bruises and shock in the blast. "He was just saying, 'I am okay, I am okay', over and over again," said Penny Hart, who was woken by the 1.30am cellphone call.

"He was actually still at the scene," she said.

Major Hart, 35, of 2 Land Force Group in Linton, near Palmerston North, was last night evacuated to Kuwait.

Two other New Zealanders, Alan Johnson and Dave Rendall, suffered minor injuries.

Mrs Hart did not know if her husband would come home, but was sure that if he could, he would continue with the UN's anti-mining project.

As a nurse, she knew injury was an occupational hazard in her husband's line of work.

She held no resentment towards the Iraqi people for the attack. She had heard most were behind the liberation forces.

Major Hart was sent to Angola in 1998, East Timor in 2000 and has been in Iraq for about three months.

"He went there to do a job ... and he was very keen to go to this position. It's a first-on-the-ground deployment, and he was very interested in meeting those challenges."

One of the other New Zealanders at the site, Mr Johnson, a UN food distribution agency worker and former Army Major, said the UN community was devastated by the attack.

He sent a televised message to his family in Christchurch, saying he was fine and hoped to see them soon.

Next month, 61 New Zealand defence personnel are to be deployed in Iraq. The Defence Force said those plans would go ahead.

- NZPA, STAFF REPORTER

Herald Feature: Iraq