Human remains found near World Trade Centre site
Construction workers cleaning toxic waste from an empty skyscraper across from the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks site have found four more human body parts in the building, after finding 10 bone fragments on the rooftop last autumn, officials said today.
The city medical examiner’s office will once again extract DNA from the remains recovered from the former Deutsche Bank building and try to match the results against a database of the 2,749 people killed at the trade centre on September 11, 2001, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner’s office.
Fire Department officials searched the building for remains, but more are being discovered now because the building is being cleaned thoroughly as construction workers prepare to dismantle it, said John Gallagher, spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
But some victims’ family members said forensic experts should search the 41-storey building again.
“I’m not trying to malign the construction workers, but this is not what they’re trained to do,” said Diane Horning, whose son was killed at the trade centre and who has filed suit to remove trade centre debris from a Staten Island landfill where victims’ remains were found.
“I just don’t understand how they would think this is the right way to go,” she said.
More than 40% of the victims at the trade centre have not been identified.
The medical examiner’s office is storing more than 9,000 unidentified remains and hope that more sophisticated DNA technology can allow for identifications in the future.
Borakove said that two pieces of human remains were found on January 27 on the 38th floor of the Deutsche Bank building.
She could not say what the remains were or how big they were.
Last Friday, workers found two bone fragments on the building’s rooftop, she said. Last September, construction workers clearing gravel found 10 human bone fragments on the building’s roof, she said.
Fire Department spokesman David Billig referred all questions on more intensive searches to the medical examiner’s office. Borakove said the office was never involved in the search for remains at ground zero and could not comment.
The Deutsche Bank building has been vacant since the terrorist attacks, when part of the south tower tore a gash into the building as it fell. Deconstruction of the building – which is contaminated with asbestos, lead and dust from the trade centre – began last September. Gallagher said workers will begin taking down the building floor by floor in mid-May.
