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New York Officials Urge Families to Accept WTC Disaster Pains
Many families who lost their loved ones in the September 11 disaster now have to accept the reality that they may never receive the victims' remains due to the intensity of the fire caused by the airplanes' impact, New York city officials said Tuesday.
Two weeks have past since the terrorist attacks in which two hijacked passenger planes hit the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC), leaving thousands missing or presumed dead, in addition to 157 killed aboard the planes.
City officials on Tuesday cut the number of people missing in the attacks to 6,398 from Monday's 6,453 due to duplicated names.
"The number keeps changing as we go through the lists and find there may be some duplications," Mayor Rudy Giuliani told a press conference.
Three more bodies have been recovered since Monday, bringing the number of the confirmed dead on the site to 279, of which 209 have been identified, he said.
The attacks are part of a terrorist plot involving a similar attack on the Pentagon building in Washington DC and a fourth hijacked plane crash in rural Pennsylvania. Plane casualties in Pentagon and Pennsylvania totalled 108 plus 189 missing in Pentagon.
Search continued on the devastated site of WTC on Tuesday, though no survivors have been found since September 12. There were only five people pulled alive out of the rubble in the first 26 hours of the rescue mission.
Forty firefighters and seven uniformed officers are confirmed dead. The list of the missing includes 343 firefighters and 74 employees and officers of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority which once owned the WTC.
Over 100,000 tons of debris have been removed, but much more remains to be cleaned up.
Authorities see little hope to find any more survivors and work is under way to speed the issuing of death certificates to victims ' families, making it easier for them to file insurance claims.
Legal assistance will be available as from Wednesday, and relatives of the victims who chose to obtain a death certificate in the absence of remains will be required to show documents verifying the victims' employment and the relationship between the recipient and the missing person.
Fewer firemen and search dogs can be seen at the still- smoldering site and more construction workers moved in to restore power and bring in heavy equipment to pull away the ruins, according to a local TV program.
Meanwhile, law enforcement authorities said they have detained 352 people nationwide in connection with the terrorist attacks, with another 392 wanted for questioning.
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