Fires continue to burn under Trade Center; mayor says chance of finding anyone alive `small'
By Tara Burghart, Associated Press, 09/21/01
NEW YORK -- With fires still burning beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center 10 days after the terrorist attack, the mayor said Friday that hope is all but gone of finding anyone alive among the more than 6,000 missing.
"The chance of recovering anyone alive is very, very small," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said. "The chances of recovering significant numbers of people who survived is impossible. We're not going to recover significant numbers of people. We know that. We recognize that."
The mayor said on a call-in show on WABC radio that the latest number of missing in the Trade Center attack -- 6,333 -- could go up or down as city officials try to determine how many foreigners were lost in the tragedy.
Lists of possible victims provided by foreign consulates are being cross-checked against other lists of those missing and injured, Giuliani said.
Meanwhile, Wall Street workers slogged through muddy streets and sightseers posed with the Trade Center's ruins behind them the morning after President Bush vowed to rebuild the city as a symbol of America's resolve.
Hundreds of rescue workers in yellow slickers continued to dig through the wreckage despite sporadic, sometimes heavy rain and lightning.
Many took photographs. Others just shook their heads, like Anthony Kahn, a lawyer who came to visit the site. "Everyone is transfixed ... by the horror at the scene," he said. Weeks before, his daughter had played at a free concert at the centers' plaza.
The stock markets, responding to economic uncertainty and Bush's uncompromising talk of retaliation, lost more than 300 points in the opening minutes of trading Friday, but regained some ground later.
During Thursday's televised speech before Congress, Bush held up a police badge belonging to George Howard, a 45-year-old Port Authority officer who had been rushing toward the Trade Center to help when he was hit by debris and killed. Bush said he would carry the badge, given to him by Howard's mother, as a reminder of what needs to be done.
"It is my reminder of lives that ended and a task that does not end," Bush said. "I will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield."
The site where the twin towers stood has increasingly become a touchstone where politicians from across the United States and abroad are being brought to strengthen their resolve in the fight against terrorism.
Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert planned to visit the site Friday, as did Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller. On Thursday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair attended a church service in Manhattan, and 40 U.S. senators got a look at the devastation at ground zero.
"I've never seen anything comparable to what we've seen here today, the magnitude of it," said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. "It's so important that we come and see what we're dealing with."
The Sept. 11 attacks on the Trade Center spread far beyond America's borders, with at least 63 countries counting their citizens among the missing.
Giuliani said the British consulate had 250 citizens missing. According to the consulates, Germany has 120 to 150 missing and four confirmed dead; India 91 missing; Canada 35 to 50 missing; Japan 24 missing; Australia 20 missing and three dead; Colombia 20 missing and one dead; and the Philippines 19 missing.
The reports of foreigners who never returned home increased the count of the missing in the attack from 5,422 on Thursday.
Of the more than 6,000 people treated for injuries on the day of the attack, more than 60 remained in hospitals in New York and New Jersey. Of the 241 bodies recovered, the coroner's office has identified 170.
At the site of the devastation, dump trucks carried out loads of debris, and smoke still curled from the rubble. The rain made the steel slick and turned the ash that covers everything to mud.
"It's hard to get footing on the steel, but it's a 24-7 operation," said Bobby Blake, an ironworker. "There's at least a foot of mud."
Their efforts were halted for about 20 minutes Friday morning by a lightning storm that sent workers scurrying under tents and tarpaulins.
"We tried to stay away from the metal," said Verizon employee Dennis Lucas, who was laying cables.
In his speech Thursday night, Bush praised Giuliani and New York Gov. George Pataki and looked to the future.
"As a symbol of America's resolve, my administration will work with Congress and these two leaders to show the world that we will rebuild New York City," he said.
Ron Cox, a volunteer firefighter from Dawsonville, Ga., watched the president's address during a break from his work directing traffic and moving buckets of debris.
"Bush was right on point. You've got to really be behind the president," Cox said.
Larry Silverstein, leader of a consortium that took over a 99-year, $3.2 billion lease on the Trade Center in July, said Thursday he intends to rebuild -- but not "a carbon copy of what was." Instead, he may construct four 50-story buildings.
