There are believed to be "a few thousand people" in the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center, New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday, almost 24 hours after the center's twin towers collapsed.
"There will be a few thousand people left in each building," he told a news conference.
Giuliani estimated that it would take two to three weeks to clear the debris, news agencies quoted him as saying.
"We took 120 dump trucks out of the city last night, and that will give you some idea of the amount of debris," he said.
The Center's two 110-storey towers collapsed within half an hour of each other on Tuesday morning after being struck by hijacked passenger airliners.
Giuliani suggested that the casualty toll would be higher in the northern tower, the first of the pair to be hit and the second to fall.
"Building number two had a chance to clear out, a lot of people probably cleared out of building number two," he said, referring to the southern tower, which was hit 18 minutes after its neighbor.
Giuliani said three survivors had been pulled from the rubble "and we are hopeful of getting out a fourth."
He said the first priority was to hope anyone still alive in the ruins and after that to start normal services in Manhattan, which has been all but cut off from the outside world for 24 hours.
"We want to make sure that food comes into the city and that people can go about their lives," he said.
The removal of debris "is going to be a task that goes on for at least two or three weeks," he said.
Giuliani also appealed to people who might have private videos of the attacks to give them to the authorities.
"Some came forward late yesterday and last evening," he said.
"Please contact the police department or the FBI because it could be of enormous help in the investigation of the case," he added.
The New York Times reported that rescuers pulled nine people from the rubble of the devastated World Trade Center today as the search continued for survivors and victims of Tuesday's airborne attacks.
The nine, a company of seven firefighters and two Port Authority police officers, apparently fell into a small pocket of air after the towers collapsed, officials said. They were taken to a hospital for treatment.
An officer with the Nassau County emergency services who was involved in the rescue said in a television interview that one of those rescued "was in very good condition." He added that a doctor kept all the firefighters in "great shape all through the night, using an I.V. and that sort of thing."
"There were pipes and concrete all around them," he said, adding that the space created by the rubble allowed them to survive. He estimated that the survivors had been trapped from five to six hours, said the paper.
A fellow firefighter who was at the scene said the seven had apparently "fallen into a void that saved their lives."
The seven were freed only hours after the rescue of two other survivors, both of them Port Authority police officers, late Tuesday night – Albawaba.com
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