News Service from House Harris

NSW: Film editor, other Aussies, in dramatic Mumbai escape

SYDNEY, Nov 27 AAP - Film editor David Gross and a group of other Australians had huddled "silent like mice for five hours" as they listened to the gunbattle raging inside Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel.

Then came the moment when they realised the gunmen were outside the door of the function room where the group had holed themselves up when the terrorist assault began.

They were on their own and they knew it. Risking being heard by the gunmen, they began tearing down the curtains and fashioned a 20-metre long makeshift rope.

Minutes later they had smashed open the window of their upstairs haven and shimmied down to the debris-littered street. Then they ran for their lives.

"We started sliding out. At this stage there were embers dropping down from the burning storeys above, there was glass all down the bottom," Gross told ABC radio.

"We just ran because suddenly we realised, now that we are in the open we weren't safe ...

"We just kept running until we were past it all ... and then we've spent two hours trying to find each other which has been probably the most long, alarming part."

Gross said the hours inside the Taj Mahal - one of two luxury hotels attacked by terrorists overnight along with a railway station and other sites - had been terrifying.

He said the gunmen had blocked the hotel's exits and the fire escapes were locked.

"We were basically forced into the corner ... we were holed up there with probably about 75 to 100 people," he said.

"People just started arriving ... the room filled up to capacity and then (we) started bolting all the doors shut.

"We started getting furniture, kitchen appliances ... pushing as much stuff against the doors to barricade ourselves inside that area."

Gross said the group had huddled "silent like mice for five hours" and heard at least 25 explosions amongst the rapid gun fire.

"Each time they were louder and nearby and you could hear gunshots down the corridor that was outside our door.

"It wasn't a nice place to be.

"We could hear pots and pans being shot at ... there were hundreds of rounds being fired and we all suddenly just realised that they were coming this way and we weren't going to stop them ... it was chaos."

Gross said his foot was badly cut during his escape but he had been unable to seek medical attention because a nearby hospital had also been attacked.

Gross is in Mumbai with actress Brooke Satchwell, who hid in a cupboard in a bathroom as the Taj Mahal attacks unfolded.

He did not want to reveal where he and the ex-Neighbours star Satchwell were now hiding.

A group calling itself the Deccan Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the overnight assaults that killed at least 100 people and wounded 100 others.

Press reports say one Australian is among the dead, and two others were shot and wounded.