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Search for survivors grinds on after terrorist attacks
September 13, 2001 Posted: 3:40 a.m. EDT (2050 GMT)
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Emergency workers wash out the eyes of a New York City firefighter near the site of the World Trade Center
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(CNN) -- Rapidly rising billows of thick white smoke rose from the remains of New York's World Trade Center towers and the western wall of the Pentagon in Washington on Wednesday, a day after catastrophic strikes on two renowned symbols of American power.
The news from dusty and desolate lower Manhattan was not all grim on Wednesday, rescuers pulled 4 survivors from the rubble early Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday night, President George W. Bush responded to the terrorist attacks with words of comfort and resolve.
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"These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of America's resolve," Bush said. "Our military is powerful, and it is prepared."
"Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured, and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks," Bush continued.
On Wednesday morning, Bush called the attacks "acts of war," and asked Congress for emergency funding to aid rescue and relief efforts.
Latest Developments
Hundreds of people have been reported dead; thousands are feared dead in New York as a result of the attack on the World Trade Center towers. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani warned that the death toll would be
grim. "The numbers we are working with are in the thousands," Giuliani told
reporters at a briefing. The known dead included Fire Chief Pete Ganci, who spent more than 30 years with the New York Fire Department.
The Greater New York Hospital Association -- an organization of some 200
hospitals in the New York metro area -- said emergency rooms treated more than
1,500 people as a result of Tuesday's attack.
Disaster declarations were requested for New York City as well as
Arlington County in Northern Virginia. Federal Emergency Management Director Joe Allbaugh said his agency has dispatched crews to both New York and northern Virginia.
U.S. intelligence officials told CNN they were looking at a number of suspects believed responsible for the attacks. Secretary of State Colin Powell said no suspects had been ruled out but he felt the United States would soon know who is responsible.
Law enforcement officials in Boston, Venice, Florida, and Vero Beach, Florida, took several people into custody, sources told CNN.
At the Pentagon, workers went back into the undamaged portions of the
building. Firefighters poured water on a still smoldering section of the
building. Pentagon officials said they fear the death toll would range from 100 up to
800 people.
The White House revealed Wednesday afternoon that "reasonable and credible" information exists that the White House itself, and Air Force One, were targets of Tuesday's terrorist attack on the nation's capital. Officials told CNN that President Bush was diverted on his return trip to Washington on Tuesday because they had received information that either the White House or the presidential jet may have been targeted by those flying two commandeered jets toward Washington earlier that morning.
The Federal Aviation Administration has given clearance for flights diverted after Tuesday's terrorist attacks to continue on to their final destination Wednesday, but ordered all other commercial air traffic to remain grounded.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ministers today unanimously declared the organization would provide military and logistical support for U.S. retaliation against those responsible for Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In Pennsylvania, the recovery process at the scene of the hijacked
airliner that crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County is
expected to take up to five weeks, according to officials at the scene.
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