Oz actress Satchwell escapes Mumbai hotel attack
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Brooke Satchwell has been staying in Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel. (AAP: Supplied)
Australian actress Brooke Satchwell hid inside a bathroom cupboard for about an hour to escape a terrorist attack in the Indian city of Mumbai.
The 28-year-old had been having dinner in the city's Taj Mahal Hotel with friends and colleagues.
The hotel was among a string of high-profile targets which were attacked by heavily-armed gunmen in Mumbai this morning. The attacks left at least 80 people dead.
Satchwell said she was heading back inside the hotel after having a cigarette when she heard gunshots.
"I came back in and went via the bathrooms, which were on the ground floor next to the lobby, and as I stepped inside the lobby gunshots started to go off," she told Network Ten.
"There was probably about six of us in the bathroom and everybody froze.
"Then I think adrenalin kicked in and it became pretty clear what was going on.
"People started to lock themselves in the toilet cubicles [but] at that point that didn't seem like a very clever idea. There was no way out."
Instead, Satchwell opted to hide inside a cupboard - about two metres by 1.5 metres.
"It was really terrifying," she said.
"There was people getting shot in the corridor. There was someone dead outside the bathroom."
Hotel staff shepherded people from the bathrooms, but Satchwell said they didn't seem to know what to do.
"It was chaos. Nobody really knew what was going on," she said.
"I don't think they knew where anybody was or what the plan was."
Satchwell, who is in India to film a travel documentary, says she still doesn't feel safe.
"We definitely won't be moving and ironically we only made it out of Bangkok an hour-and-a-half before it shut down," she told ABC 702 Local Radio, referring to the protests at Thailand's main airport.
"My nerves are a little frayed at the moment. I haven't slept for the last 24 hours."
Satchwell says one group of Australians escaped the Taj Mahal Hotel by shredding some drapes, tying them together and sliding down the makeshift rope from the hotel's second floor.
"Real Robinson Crusoe," she said.
- ABC/AAP
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