A former reporter with The Argus told today how he rescued seven people from the carnage of the bomb blast at the UN's Baghdad headquarters.

Grant Hodgson described how he battled to haul bleeding, disoriented casualties from the wrecked building following the explosion which killed 20 and injured hundreds.

Grant, 33, from Brighton, had gathered with other journalists for a Press conference at the Canal Hotel, being used by the UN, when the bomb went off.

A suicide bomber had driven a yellow cement truck packed with explosives into the three-storey building.

Grant told how he was shrouded in blood and dust as rubble fell all around him and wounded victims staggered into the Press room.

He took the hands of some of the injured to help lead them out of the crumbling building and carried seven to safety over his shoulders.

US Army medics were treating casualties outside the hotel and Grant helped fill water bottles to give to choking UN workers.

He said: "I was offered treatment but my gashed left leg was barely an injury compared with the mayhem all around me."

He also described how security at the UN building had appeared lax, making the base vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Grant, who worked for The Argus from 1997 to 1999 and was the paper's education reporter, said: "When I went into the UN yesterday no one searched me, no one searched the bag I was carrying.

"If I'd wanted to get a bomb in there I wouldn't have had a problem yesterday."

He had gone to the hotel for a Press briefing from UN mines expert Martin Barber on the dangers of unexploded ordnance.

Despite the horror of the blast, Grant, now working for news agency Kent News and Pictures supplying reports to national newspapers, intends to remain in Baghdad.

He said: "I know the UN people want their work to carry on here and I want to carry on here too.

"Although it's horrific and an awful tragedy, it shouldn't stop the good work being done here to rebuild this country."

Grant, who was with the agency's photographer Phil Toscano, called his news editor Barry Rabbetts at 1.30pm yesterday with news of the explosion.

Mr Rabbetts said: "He did have an injury to his leg but he still stopped to help the people trapped inside, which is the kind of person he is.

Mr Rabbetts said Grant had delivered some "incredible" eyewitness reports of what had been happening across Iraq since Saddam Hussein lost control.

He said: "If you want an accurate picture of what is going on in a country like Iraq, where there is state-owned TV, you need journalists like Grant."

The duo have been in Iraq since May 30.

Grant's girlfriend Rebecca Burgess, 32, who lives in Hove, said: "I'm very proud of him. Before he left for Iraq we talked about it at length and he went with my full support, but of course I still really miss him."

She said Grant would be embarrassed by the attention his actions have attracted.

She said: "He would want people to remember the dozens of people who have been killed and the hundreds who have been injured. There are a lot of families grieving at the moment."

She added: "Of course I'm relieved Grant is OK but both he and I have a lot of feelings for the people out there. He was just doing what anyone else would have done."

Among those killed in yesterday's explosion were UN special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and a British member of his staff, Fiona Watson.

Foreign secretary Jack Straw condemned the bombing as "an outrage" and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan described it as "a crime, not only against the United Nations but against Iraq itself."

A civilian contractor working in Iraq was killed today when guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US convoy in Tikrit.

Two American soldiers were also injured in the attack in former dictator Saddam Hussein's home town.