NEW YORK (Reuters) – A total of 4,763 people were missing in the World Trade Center catastrophe, officials said on Thursday, while determined rescuers searched for any signs of life in the ruins of the twin towers demolished in a chilling attack at the nation’s financial heart.
The official death toll rose to 94, and 70 body parts also had been recovered from the smoldering wreckage of the buildings felled two days earlier by hijacked planes, said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
The situation was “horrible and gruesome,” he said, adding, ”I’m sorry that I have to describe it that way, but that’s unfortunately the situation that we’re facing.”
Yet the city left reeling by the assaults was making an effort 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.
In downtown Manhattan, where the hellish devastation spread over block after city block, rescuers worked feverishly in hopes that anyone could still be alive. More than 40,000 people worked in the huge commercial complex on an ordinary day.
“We have 4,763 people on the missing persons list,” said the mayor. “That’s a list as inclusive as we can make it.”
The list included people on the planes, people identified by family members and information from businesses located in the Trade Center, he said.
Only five people had been pulled out alive since Tuesday.
Sadly, hopes dimmed of finding more survivors under the mind-boggling piles of concrete, glass and steel that once were the two 110-story high buildings.
Earlier pleas for help made on cell phones by people inside the rubble hadn’t been heard in six or seven hours, the mayor said in earlier morning comments.
“We’ve had indications from the dogs that we use to try to spot people, we’ve had indications that there are people,” he added. “We’ve followed those up, and in some cases that’s not correct, but we’re going to continue to do that.
“We’re still hopeful we can find some people,” he said.
But in a grim sign, the city ordered as many as 11,000 body bags and hospitals braced for waves of injured survivors that never came.
BIN LADEN BLAMED
Officials pointed a finger of blame at Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident living in Afghanistan, for the attacks that destroyed the two landmark towers. Hijackers also commandeered another jetliner that rammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth went down in Pennsylvania. The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday that the FBI identified 50 people who helped plan or carry out the air attacks. Forty had been accounted for, including those who died in the suicide attacks, and 10 were at large, it said. The newspaper quoted a source as saying agents who searched cars and apartments found suicide notes in New York that some hijackers wrote for their parents. In the city, winds blew acrid fumes as far north as Central Park, five miles away. While people covered their faces, concerned that the foul air could be toxic, the mayor said asbestos tests were negative. In the center of the devastation was a huge crater filled with tangles of metal beams. Firefighters with flashlights in hand walked gingerly over the beams and dug with their hands. “They are searching anything open like this,” said Chief Peter Rice pointing down into a crater. “A void that someone might have fallen into.” Anxious families awaited word of missing loved ones, but there was wrenchingly little news. Officials set up a center for families at an armory on Lexington Avenue. More than 300 of those missing were firefighters and emergency personnel who rushed in after the first plane hit the north tower at about 8:45 a.m. EDT and the second plane rammed the south tower about 15 minutes later on Tuesday morning. “You know your brothers are in there,” said one firefighter. “There’s no quitting.” They apparently were trapped when the towers crumpled in enormous clouds of fire, dust and smoke almost two hours later. Hours later, a third, 47-story building in the complex also collapsed. In the nearly two hours between the attack of the first plane and the collapse of the second tower, thousands who fled but paused to look back were left with searing images of panicked people who could be seen jumping or falling from the towers’ upper floors. The catastrophe wiped out the city’s tallest skyscrapers, tearing a deep gash in the southern tip of Manhattan and leaving a gaping hole in the city’s famed skyline. Nearby buildings were destroyed by the collapse of the two towers, which were the tallest buildings in the world when they opened in 1973. A glass skyway that once connected the World Trade Center with the neighboring World Financial Center lay in jagged shards on a highway below. Sidewalks and streets were strewn with mangled cars and demolished rescue equipment and blanketed with a thick layer of dust, ash, blood, debris, torn paper and a heartbreaking array of personal belongings. The devastation to the financial district shut down the stock market on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — the longest stretch of suspended trading since the outbreak of World War I. The market may reopen Friday or Monday, officials said.BUSINESSES DECIMATED
Businesses with offices in the tower struggled to account for employees.
Trading company Cantor Fitzgerald, with offices in some of the highest floors of one tower, reportedly was missing 90 percent of its work force of about 1,000 people.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, said 450,000 tons of debris would have to be cleared from the twin towers and another 15,000 from the third building that collapsed.
Outside the huge cordoned-off disaster site, residents, wearing masks to protect their noses and mouths from the smoke, gathered to applaud, cheer and shout words of encouragement as trucks of exhausted rescue workers drove past. Some held signs reading simply “Thank You.”
Both hijacked planes that hit New York were flying to Los Angeles from Boston, loaded with fuel for the cross-country trips. American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, had 92 people on board when it struck the north tower. United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 65 people, struck the south tower.