A guest rescued at the Taj hotel in Mumbai on Thursday. (AP)

Mumbai, Nov. 27: Although westerners seem to have been a major target of the Mumbai terror attack, less than a tenth of those known to be killed are foreigners.

“So far, we have reports of nine foreign nationals killed. But many have or had been taken hostage. And the attack on an apartment housing Israeli nationals certainly points at the same strategy (of targeting foreigners),” Maharashtra police chief A.N. Roy said.

Police said eyewitnesses told them the terrorists had called out for British and US passport holders as they fired recklessly and took people hostage in both the Taj and Oberoi hotels.

“Till now the dead include a 49-year-old Australian, a Briton, a Japanese, an Italian, a Greek, a Mauritian and a German national. The nationalities of the remaining two are yet to be ascertained. The respective embassies have been notified,” Roy added.

Although all the identities have not been clearly established yet, police sources said Andreas Liveras, the Greek billionaire who owns a luxury yacht manufacturing company, was among the dead.

There was no news on Chaitlall Gunness, CEO of the State Bank of Mauritius, who was on a business trip to Mumbai and was staying at the Taj. Gunness’s wife, who was travelling with him, is safe, the police said. She had gone out to make a call to Mauritius when the terrorists entered the hotel.

“She is safe at a friend’s place,” the police spokesperson said.

Esperanza Aguirre, head of the Madrid regional government,was evacuated unhurt from the Oberoi hotel after the terror attack. (File picture)

Australian TV actress Brooke Satchwell, a former star in the soap opera Neighbours, hid in a cupboard in the Oberoi.

“As I stepped inside the lobby, gunshots started to go off,” she told TV channels. “It was really terrifying. There were people getting shot in the corridor. There was someone dead outside the bathroom.”

Among the luckier are French nuclear physicist M. George Vendryes and his wife. Vendryes, 88, was in Mumbai to receive the Indian Nuclear Society’s Eminent Scientist Award. The police said the couple were taken to an undisclosed location after being evacuated from the Taj.

“The award was given on Wednesday at the annual conference of the INS. He and his wife returned to the Taj around 6 in the evening. At 10pm, I got a call from them, saying the hotel had been attacked. When they came out of the hotel this morning, we took them to the department of atomic energy (DAE) guesthouse in Malabar Hills. Vendryes is amazingly calm and composed despite what he has gone through,” a top DAE official said.

The head of Madrid’s regional government, Esperanza Aguirre, was evacuated from the lobby of the Trident Oberoi as she stepped into the hotel minutes after the shooting started.

A British member of the European Parliament, Sajjad Karim, was inside the Taj when the gunmen attacked. He too was able to escape unhurt.

“I saw one man on foot carrying a machinegun type of weapon — which I then saw him firing from and I saw people hitting the floor, people right next to me,” Karim told reporters.

Chloe Papazahariakis of Australia had her wedding ruined.

“Four days back, I moved to this beautiful city to marry my husband who works here. Some 20 of my friends and relatives are down here at the hotel. I just want to run from here now,” she said after being evacuated by the fire brigade.

Most eyewitnesses said the attackers were young South Asian men speaking Urdu.