NEW YORK, Dec 20: It has been 100 days since terrorists brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers in a horrifying maelstrom of fire and debris, and though the blaze at Ground Zero has stopped burning, New Yorkers’ nagging wounds have not.
“When you see two giant buildings fall, it’s something you’re not going to forget,” said John Rolph, 24, who watched the towers crumble from his Lower Manhattan home.
“It’s probably got greater psychological impact than hearing that John F. Kennedy died, or hearing about Pearl Harbor, because it’s something that you watched unfold directly in front of your eyes.”
The impact is indeed staggering. The latest toll shows 2,992 people died when two hijacked jetliners slammed into the skyscrapers, collapsing the buildings on top of them.
Among those lost were 343 firefighters, 124 of whom have been confirmed dead, along with 23 policemen, including five whose deaths have ben confirmed.
In the 100 days since Sept 11, 845,156 tons of debris have been removed form Ground Zero in 64,367 truck loads, and rescue workers continue the cleanup and recovery effort around the clock.
New York Governor George Pataki announced on Wednesday the fire smoldering in the ruins of the trade center since the attacks had finally been extinguished.
The blaze, likely to be remembered as the longest-burning building fire in US history, smoldered for three months in underground pockets that firefighters could not reach, fed by office furniture and paper.
Day to day life here has slowly returned to normal, with excitement over the comings and goings of star players for the Yankees baseball team and vocal disappointment in the lackluster play of the Giants football club, but New York residents have, nevertheless, been changed by the attacks.
“My whole way of living has changed,” said Melba Vasquez, who worked at the Trade Center, as she waited outside her new office in midtown Manhattan during a fire drill.
“Now I take precautionary measures that before I wouldn’t,” she said. They include paying attention to such fire tests, whereas before, she said, she ignored them.
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a beleaguered city head mired in public scandal, became “America’s Mayor,” guiding the city with a strong, steady hand.
Today, New York has a new mayor-elect, billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg, who faces a harsh economic landscape when he takes the city’s reins next month.
While the attacks’ human toll has been, in Giuliani’s parlance, “unbearable,” the economic impact on the city has also been profound.
Two separate reports issued this week by top New York budget officials offered grim forecasts for the city’s fiscal future, including an expected 3.1 percent decline in the city’s economy and a possible 4.7 billion dollar budget gap next year.
But for New York lawyer Evan Bell, who works a block from the Trade Center, the economic impact pales beside the grief.
“I still see people standing across from Ground Zero, wiping tears away from their eyes,” he said.
Ashcroft: US Attorney General John Ashcroft has recommended against the death penalty for American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, instead suggesting he face less serious charges that carry a maximum of 10 years in prison, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Ashcroft suggested to President George W. Bush that Walker be charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization, said the daily citing an unnamed administration official.
Some had suggested that Walker, 20, be charged with treason, a much more serious charge which carries the death penalty.
The Journal said Bush had not decided whether or not to take Ashcroft’s counsel, and may still charge Walker with a more serious crime and make him face a military court-martial. On Wednesday, the White House said that decision on what charges he faces could come this week.—AFP