New York | Wednesday
NEW York Mayor Rudy Giuliani warned grieving families that thousands of bodies missing in the charred ruins of the World Trade Center would never be recovered.
”We are going to end up in a situation where we do not recover a significant number of human remains, so people have to focus on that a little bit,” he told a news conference on Tuesday.
Giuliani said rescuers would push on with the search and rescue effort in the rubble of the twin 110-storey towers, hoping against hope to find survivors and recover as many bodies as possible.
A total of 287 bodies have been recovered so far and 6 347 people are listed as missing after the September 11 terrorist attack.
”If for some reason a miracle were to occur and we could save someone we would,” said Giuliani, assuring relatives that rescue efforts were being carried out in a ”sensitive and careful way”.
But he said the main focus of the operation now was the recovery of as many human remains as possible and gave details of how relatives could apply for death certificates even though they had no body to present.
Nobody has been found alive since the night after the attack in which terrorists on a suicide mission rammed two passenger jets packed with fuel into the WTC, igniting a fireball which caused the towers to collapse.
Hundreds of rescue workers — aided by huge cranes, sniffer dogs and high-tech search equipment — spent a 15th day sifting through the mass of twisted metal and concrete in the heart of New York’s financial district.
”It’s very disappointing, frustrating. I worked on getting two people alive two hours after the attack. We though there would be so many more,” sighed one weary rescue worker.
”There are still voids. But the way it collapsed — it pancaked down, one storey into another, into another, into another, all the way down to the foundations — it’s very unlikely that we’ll find anyone alive.”
”The condition of the bodies is terrible. Most of the time we only find pieces, bones, skulls,” he said. Even the sniffer dogs were getting depressed, he added. Mayor Giuliani said 224 of the 287 bodies found so far had been identified and included 41 firefighters.
He said the number of people confirmed missing had fallen by 106 from the previous day as government officials cross-checked various lists.
The number has risen and fallen over the past week, mainly because of discrepancies between the lists drawn up by foreign consulates and the lists recorded by police.
The mayor said it was up to the families of the missing to decide whether they wanted to apply for death certificates, which would allow them to sort out wills and settle insurance claims.
”I know that this is a very painful and very difficult process.
I emphasise that this is up to the families to decide whether this is a step that (they) want to take at this time,” he said.
”People have to come to this in their own minds and hearts.”
Giuliani said families were reacting to the tragedy in different ways and the city wanted to help those who now accepted loved ones were dead.
Families seeking death certificates have been asked to assemble at the centre set up for grieving relatives on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings.
They have been asked to bring identification such as marriage certificates or birth certificates to prove they are next of kin, as well as pay checks or company letters to indicate their relatives worked for a company in the WTC.
”My sympathy (goes out) for everyone that has to go through this,” Giuliani said.
He said the city had mobilised more than 500 lawyers who would provide free legal aid and that government officials would cross-check with companies to see if a missing person could have been inside the towers when they collapsed.
A total of 189 people were confirmed dead or missing after a third hijacked aircraft hit the Pentagon outside Washington minutes after the attack on New York. The toll includes the 64 passengers and crew aboard the doomed plane.
Another 44 people died when a fourth hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania, apparently after the passengers thwarted a suicide mission. – AFP
FEATURES:
Shattered World: A Daily Mail & Guardian special on the attack on the US
OFF-SITE:
The Guardian’s special report on the attacks