Grim New York rescue finds few survivors

3:30 pm

NEW YORK - Bright searchlights light the darkened, hellish ruins of the World Trade Center after a day of rescue efforts that recovered only three people alive, with thousands feared killed in an attack by hijacked commercial planes that shocked America.

Toward the end of a gruelling day for rescuers, One Liberty Plaza, a 54-story building near the ruins of the 110-story twin towers that had once dominated Manhattan's southern skyline, appeared in danger of collapse and the area was evacuated.

City officials said at a news conference that the building suffered structural damage but it did not collapse.

Rescue worker Michael Alvarez, 39, said he was deep underground when he was ordered to evacuate. "Somebody sounded an air horn, we were 30 or 40 guys in a chain in the pit. We came out and it looked like ants were running away."

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told the news conference the body count had reached 82, but he has acknowledged that officials fear thousands were killed in an area where 40,000 people work on a normal day.

The dead include hundreds of firefighters and hundreds of police officers who rushed to the scene to help after the planes slammed into the twin towers. Most would have been killed when the damaged towers collapsed.

The mayor said a total of five people have been pulled from the wreckage in lower Manhattan, three on Wednesday and two on Tuesday night.

Hundreds of emergency workers using sniffing search dogs, motion detectors and construction equipment to remove tons of smouldering debris, rescued a Port Authority policeman, a woman and an identified person from the ruins.

The policeman was listed in critical condition at a hospital.

Giuliani confirmed that the city had requested 6,000 body bags from the federal government. But police sources said as many as 50,000 had already been ferried across the Hudson River from neighbouring New Jersey on Tuesday night.

A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office said the process of bringing in and identifying bodies was "still in flux" as families roamed the city, visiting hospitals in hopes of finding their relatives there.

"We don't have that many bodies yet, we have the possibility of an alternative morgue set up by the federal government," spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said. "We have different plans and as the bodies are recovered, we will take it from there."

Elected officials and ordinary people alike showed signs of resilience.

Some of the bridges and tunnels into Manhattan were reopened and businesses and financial markets that were forced to close, made plans to reopen no later than Monday.

Newark International Airport in New Jersey reopened to limited traffic on Wednesday night under intense security.

In different parts of the eerily quiet city, many people stayed at home while others stopped to remember the dead and the rescue workers fighting in the increasingly futile hope of saving those buried under crushed concrete and twisted steel.

A crowd lined the West Side highway to cheer construction workers travelling by bus to the disaster zone. Artists who use a space about half a block from Times Square invited people to write notes of love and support. Thousands gathered for a candlelight vigil at Washington Square Park in the heart of Greenwich Village.

"I am thinking of all my 37 years in the city for all the things that all you people in America did for us people who came from foreign lands," said 66-year-old Jaime Carpio, who is originally from Peru, after writing out a card in Times Square. "I will miss you brothers and sisters forever. Your spirit will live always."

A solemn crowd, estimated at more than 5000 people, milled around Washington Square Park, most not knowing what to do, except just to be there in solidarity.

The devastation spread for blocks in every direction from where the World Trade Centre once stood. Buildings were flattened, huge clouds of brown and white smoke hung overhead and a few scattered fires burned. Southern Manhattan from 14th street and below, was shut down.

People donned face masks to protect themselves from the dust in the air and a smoky stench that drifted five miles north of the disaster area.

Building owner Rob Mango, 50, who owns and supervises seven buildings in what he called the "war zone" said he was surprised there had been no warnings of asbestos contamination, a cancer-causing substance he recognises from 20 years of experience in the construction industry.

"I spent the day scraping the stuff from air conditioner ducts, my roofs are covered with it," Mango said.

Giuliani said health department officials were checking air contamination levels.

At Saint Vincent's hospital, a rescue worker described the scene of the disaster. "It's burning inside, it's like Dante's Inferno," said Giuseppe Sergi. "There is fear that the temperature is too high, so the metal may still collapse."

Sidewalks and streets were strewn with mangled cars and demolished rescue equipment and blanketed with a several-inch-thick layer of dust, ash, blood, debris and a heart-wrenching array of personal belongings.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said 450,000 tonnes of debris would have to be cleared the twin towers and another 15,000 from the third building that collapsed.

Doctors at two nearby hospitals reported an alarming lack of people to treat. At the scene, surgeon Andrew Feldman said: "There were a lot of body bags. There were a lot of body parts."

Panicked family members rushed from hospital to hospital desperately seeking missing relatives.

Weeping and supported by two friends, Daphne Bowers went to Bellevue Hospital with a small framed picture of her missing 28-year-old daughter Veronique.

"She called me and she said, 'Mommy, the building is on fire. There's smoke coming through the walls. I can't breathe,"' the distraught mother said. "The last thing she said was 'I love you, Mommy, goodbye,' and that was at 9:05."

With so many people unaccounted for, businesses worked to locate employees who had been in a complex the size of a small town with shops, restaurants and offices.

The largest tenant, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. had 3,500 employees on 25 floors. The company said a "vast majority" of employees had been found.

Streets were largely empty of traffic, some businesses and schools were closed, a week of fashion shows was cancelled and theatres shut down.

Some 1500 National Guard troops were deployed, and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, was a few miles away off the coast of southern Long Island.

- REUTERS


The New Zealand Herald has published another special edition with extensive coverage of the terrorist attacks in the USA. Look for your copy on sale throughout the Herald circulation area this afternoon.

Full coverage: Terror in America

Pictures

Brooklyn Bridge live webcam

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The fatal flights

Emergency telephone numbers for friends and family of victims and survivors

These numbers are valid for calls from within New Zealand, but may be overloaded at the moment.

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

Survivor databases

Air New Zealand flights affected

Air NZ flight information: 0800 737-000.