Courtesy of NY1 News
For more than a dozen World Trade Center families, the long wait for their loved ones' remains is coming to an end as recovery workers Tuesday unearthed the remains of eleven firefighters and two civilians from the rubble of the twin towers.
AP World Wide Photos
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Seven of the bodies were discovered during daylight hours, while the others were removed later in the evening.
Tuesday's efforts represented the most successful day of recovery work in the last two months, and the discovery gives officials hope that more remains will be uncovered.
The remains all were discovered deep in the basement levels of the south tower. In a series of ceremonies, the bodies were draped in American flags and carried to ambulances between parallel lines of firefighters and other recovery workers.
The medical examiner will now run DNA tests to identify the remains and confirm the number of victims.
A prayer is said for three flag-draped New York firefighters just removed from the debris field where the south tower of the World Center once stood as recovery efforts continue, Tuesday, March 12, 2002, in New York. It has been six months and one day since terrorist attacks destroyed center's towers. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
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Recovery crews are concentrating their efforts on the site's last substantial debris field, a six-story mound that starts at the lowest basement level of the south tower and rises up to ground level.
Reports indicate that officials hope to have the recovery and cleanup effort completed in the next three more months.
Six months after the attacks, the total number of those confirmed missing or dead remains at 2,830, as it has for the last week. Of that total, the remains of 755 victims have been recovered and identified.
The number of death certificates issued without a body remains at 1,919. The number of missing - i.e., those victims who are unaccounted for but whose families have yet to apply for a death certificate - has stood for more than a week at 158.
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