A zoo that was left devastated by a horror blaze last night has shared some good news.

At first it was thought that the blaze at Krefeld Zoo in Germany – which could have been started by New Year’s lanterns – had killed all the animals in the monkey house.

Apparently egged on by some of Iraq’s most powerful pro-Iranian political figures, they chanted “Down, down USA”, threw stones and waved the flag of Kataeb Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia, five of whose bases were targeted by US F-15 jets on Sunday. Some chanted the name of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

After setting fire to three mobile cabins for security staff outside the compound, the crowd attacked and smashed the main gate. As staff sheltered inside the main building further back, several dozen broke into the reception, where they smashed up the interior and broke windows, and climbed on the roof, setting up more militia flags.

The fireworks then exploded in his face, knocking him to the ground. Police and medics were called and performed chest compressions on Mr McLaren, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

In NSW, police have now confirmed deaths at Lake Conjola, Yatte Yattah, Sussex Inlet and Coolagolite. Authorities been unable to reach a property at Belowra in NSW where a 72-year-old man is presumed dead.

As relatively calm conditions set in on Wednesday, the sheer scale of the fire emergency was laid bare. People returned to find their homes damaged or destroyed. Thick smoke was visible more than 2,000km away, on the south island of New Zealand.

“No one can admit to being held hostage and deprived of his most basic rights for the sole purpose of extracting confessions from him,” he said.

“I would call that psychological torture. It is a system of unacceptable psychological torture. The courage of this man – guilty or not – is admirable.