MARIA ALVAREZ and TRACY CONNOR
NY Post Online

January 3, 2002 -- Firefighters and construction workers toiling at ground zero expect to recover more clusters of victims now that they've dug down to the World Trade Center complex's bottom floors - buried three stories below sidewalk level.

"We knew that once we got down to the lower floors, we would find the people," said Tom DaParma, an official with the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

"We know there were firefighters in the lobby directing civilians and workers out of the building, and they were not going to leave. They were standing their ground."

Ten of New York's Bravest were pulled from the rubble on New Year's Day, along with three civilians.

The bodies were somewhat intact - possibly because of the firefighters' heavy bunker gear - but it's believed they died of trauma from the crushing force of the collapse, DaParma said.

The discovery was made after excavation crews reached the lower floors, possibly even the lobby, of the site - and found pockets amid the rubble.

When the buildings' steel beams collapsed, some of them fell in such a way that small voids were created under the pancaked debris, and that's where intact bodies are most likely to turn up.