Awful despair in the sound of dead silence

Two large symbols of US capitalism, two vastly different tales of tragedy.

Morgan Stanley, the financial giant that was the World Trade Center's largest tenant with 3500 employees, now says just 15 are unaccounted for.

Cantor Fitzgerald, the trading company with offices on floors 101 to 105 in the north tower, is missing about 700 of the 1000 people who worked there.

Employers only now have a clear picture of the fates of their staff and hopes are dimming that anyone is still alive in the mountains of rubble.

The list of those missing since two hijacked planes attacked the twin towers numbered 4763 people, mayor Rudy Giuliani said.

"The number of, um, I don't know exactly how to describe this," he said. "I'll give it to you the way the chief medical examiner describes it. The disaster number count, which means the body or part of a body, is 184. In many cases that 184 are parts of bodies. Forty-seven are whole bodies."

Just 35 victims had been identified, he said.

The city, left reeling by Tuesday's aerial assaults on the Trade Center's two 110-storey towers, tried to return to some semblance of everyday life.

Businesses reopened, commuters returned and the bond market resumed trading, although the stock market was closed for a third day and will not reopen until Monday.

But the mood was tense and jumpy.

Hope faltered after no new survivors were found all day in the wreckage of the two towers, where 40,000 people once worked. Five people were saved on Wednesday.

Word that five firefighters had been pulled alive from the rubble was misleading, the mayor said. They had not been buried in the initial collapses but had become trapped for several hours during the rescue effort.

Rescuers manned heavy equipment, investigators searched debris for clues and search dogs looked for signs of life.

"Time is not on our side," said Joe Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

One witness, filming the scene for local television, said rescuers listening for survivors would fall completely silent each time one thought he heard a promising sound.

"When they would think they heard something, everyone would be quiet and it was like no one was there," he said on NY1 television. "They would just listen."

Mr Giuliani said he could put to rest worries that the many buildings damaged but still standing were in imminent danger of collapse.

"None of the buildings that have been left standing have been found to be structurally unsound," he said. "We've tested them just about twice a day, and they're being tested again tonight."

Observers had been keeping a wary eye on the 54-storey One Liberty Plaza building, which was damaged. The Nasdaq market, with its headquarters there, said there was no evidence it would fall.

More than 300 of those missing were firefighters and emergency personnel who rushed in after the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center and a second rammed the south tower minutes later early on Wednesday (NZT).

They were trapped when the south tower tilted slightly and fell in a roar of smoke and flames almost two hours later, and the north tower toppled not long afterward.

"Every guy who is digging there is hoping to come out with somebody alive," said firefighter Kevin Gallagher. "Sometimes we find a person. Sometimes we find a body part."

Forecasts of rain fuelled concern that the dust could turn into heavy mud and hamper the rescue effort.

Among the missing and presumed dead were top officers with the city Fire Department, an executive of the Port Authority, a former FBI terrorism expert who had just begun work as the Trade Center's security chief, financial traders, restaurant employees, janitorial workers and bicycle messengers.

"The costs are human and the costs are enormous," said Senator Charles Schumer.

Flames leaped again from the wreckage at the Pentagon yesterday before being put out by firefighters, witnesses said.

The headquarters of the US Department of Defense was hit by a hijacked aircraft as part of the coordinated attacks on Washington and New York. Part of the structure collapsed and burned.

The Defense Department said yesterday that 126 people were still missing in the rubble, suggesting a possible death toll of about 190 at US military headquarters, including the 64 people aboard the commandeered flight.

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