Construction workers discovered 74 bone fragments over the weekend on a rooftop at a vacant skyscraper across from the World Trade Centre site in New York, the largest discovery of body parts since clean-up of the building began last fall, officials said.
Most of the fragments were found on Saturday mixed with a type of gravel that had been raked to the sides of the roof of the former Deutsche Bank building, which suffered extensive damage when part of the south tower crashed into it on September 11 2001.
Ellen Borakove, spokesperson for the city medical examiner, said workers still had more than 90m of material to rake through on the roof and said she wouldn’t be surprised by the discovery of additional remains.
”What they’ve cleared on the weekend was just a very small area. They still have quite a lot to go,” Borakove said on Thursday.
Deconstruction of the building, which is contaminated with asbestos, lead and trade-centre dust, began last September. Workers employed by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) rebuilding agency are expected to start taking down the building floor by floor in June.
Some September 11 family members have urged the LMDC to have forensic experts search the building first, and many planned to ask mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday to require a team from the medical examiner’s office to be on the site at all times.
”This is an abomination that we are putting this on construction workers,” said Sally Regenhard, the mother of a firefighter killed at the World Trade Centre.
Construction workers have been instructed to look for human remains and notify the medical examiner’s office when they find them. The remains are being discovered because the construction workers are being so thorough, LMDC president Stefan Pryor said on Thursday.
”We are proud of the effectiveness of our procedures,” Pryor said.
The LMDC had said earlier it wouldn’t oppose additional searches of the building by fire and police officials. Fire and police spokespersons didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment on Thursday.
Construction workers found 10 bone fragments on the rooftop of the building, and found four more human body parts in recent weeks.
In the most recent discovery, workers retrieved 82 samples, 74 of which proved to be human remains, Borakove said.
She said that all the remains will be given DNA testing, and stored indefinitely if they cannot be linked to anyone. None of the remains found at the building have been positively identified, although she said she hopes more sophisticated DNA technology can allow for identifications in the future.
More than 40% of the 2 749 people killed at the trade centre have not been identified. — Sapa-AP