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After a Week, Rescuers Still Have Not Reached WTC Tower Wreckage

This morning, Ed Walsh on WOR Radio read this shocking quote from the New York Times:


Seven days after the disaster, contractors clearing rubble at the site said they had yet to reach even the area where the twin towers had stood, except occasionally with the aid of mechanical talons at the ends of huge cranes.

The article from which the quote is taken, At the Site, Little Hope of Uncovering Survivors, provides a lot of new statistical information about the scope of the rescue and recovery effort. However, it is even difficult for people who were at the World Trade Center every day to understand this article without a good area map. At the moment, the best map we have located is a map of the surroundings of the World Financial Center. This only shows the western half of the World Trade Center site, so it explains only part of the New York Times article.

The New York Times quotes a representative of Bovis Lend Lease, responsible for recovery of the southwest quadrant of the site, as saying "The buildings came down and spread out to West Street and in every direction...." The article goes on to say, "{Bovis'} crews are still 100 feet away from the {South Tower}, but can now use a new wave of heavy equipment, including cranes that can reach across the debris and try to pick out the gnarled masses of steel."


The World Financial Center Map shows the West Street boundary of the World Trade Center site as well as the buildings which once stood adjoining West Street. In order to reach the ruins of the South Tower, workers must work their way over or through the ruins of the Marriott World Trade Center Hotel. As the article says, "The rubble stands as high as a six-story building.... Clearing away the debris to get to the physical foundations of the southern tower could take up to two months...."

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