A miracle the only hope now says NY mayor

NEW YORK - It will take a "miracle" to find anyone alive in the ruins of the World Trade Center and relatives of more than 6000 missing people will soon be able to apply for death certificates, says New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

It was the closest Mr Giuliani has come to declaring the deaths of 6453 people listed as missing in the September 11 attacks that destroyed the 110-storey twin towers.

"I believe that it is certainly time to say that the chances of finding anyone would now involve a miracle," Mr Giuliani said.

"Miracles have happened, but we should not be unfair and offer any kind of broad hope to people."

The mayor, leading the 8 million people of the United States' largest city through its worst tragedy, said 276 people were confirmed dead. Of those, 206 had been identified.

The New York City Medical Examiner's Office said that each confirmed death was being treated as a homicide.

President George W. Bush has declared "war on terrorism" and named Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect in attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Bin Laden has been indicted in the United States for other attacks on US interest in recent years.

Mr Giuliani said that from tomorrow, teams of lawyers working free of charge would be ready to handle the paperwork necessary for relatives of those missing to file death certificates in courts if they wanted to.

"If they want to wait, they can."

Some of those grieving, many of them relatives of firefighters and police officers who rushed to the scene after the first plane struck, said they could not resume normal life until a body was found.

"We need to know that either he is alive, or he is dead. We need to know they have found his body so we can get on with our lives. Until then, we are in limbo," said Robert Tirado, the uncle of missing firefighter Hector Tirado.

Crews continue to search the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubble on the site where the World Trade Center once stood, using huge mechanical diggers and cranes, shovels, buckets and their hands.

Only five people were pulled alive from the debris, the last one on September 12, the day after the terrorist attacks.

- REUTERS

Full coverage: Terror in America

Pictures: Day 1 | Day 2 | Brooklyn Bridge live webcam

Video

The fatal flights

Emergency telephone numbers:

United Airlines: 0168 1800 932 8555

American Airlines: 0168 1800 245 0999

NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade: 0800 872 111

US Embassy in Wellington (recorded info): 04 472 2068