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Life Came to a Standstill in United States
NEW YORK, Sept 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Air travel stopped, businesses closed and government facilities were evacuated Tuesday in the wake of attacks that sent two hijacked airplanes into the New York World Trade Center, another aircraft into the U.S. Pentagon in Washington, and one crashing to the ground in Pennsylvania, news agencies reported.
The attacks slowed travel, commerce and government operations, and led to increased security worldwide.
Institutions that millions of people use and depend on to conduct their daily lives have also been affected, reported CNN's online service.
For the first time in U.S. history, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shut down air traffic across the country. The FAA said the ban would not be lifted until noon, Eastern Standard Time (E.S.T.) Wednesday, at the earliest.
The United Nations in New York was evacuated as a precaution and all federal offices in Washington were closed. The city also declared a state of emergency.
About a million federal workers across the country were sent home. The U.S. General Services Administration said all federal offices would reopen Wednesday, except those in New York.
All federal and state buildings in Massachusetts were closed, including those in Boston - where two of the crashed planes originated.
NASA administrator Daniel Goldin ordered seven NASA field centers closed, and technicians powered down and "safed" four space shuttle orbiters. The shuttles Discovery, Columbia and Endeavor are currently in their hangars - known as Orbital Processing Facilities. Some 12,000 employees of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida were sent home.
The first-ever grounding of all flights in the United States will remain in effect until at least noon E.S.T. Wednesday due to security concerns following Tuesday's hijackings, the FAA said.
The "groundstop" affects the 36,000 to 40,000 flights that take off in the United States daily, as well as general aviation flights. Also, no flights will be allowed to come into the United States from other countries.
"The earliest the national groundstop will be lifted is noon tomorrow. And that's at the very earliest," FAA spokesman Les Dorr said Tuesday.
He said that an estimated 1.6 million people fly the United States daily. Dorr also said he did not think passengers would feel inconvenienced by the ban because of the nature of the tragedy.
"Obviously, this is an unprecedented set of events," he said. "I think most people will understand what is going on."
FBI agents targeted homes and post office boxes in south Florida for searches late Tuesday, with warrants based on passenger lists from the hijacked planes used in the attacks in New York and Washington earlier in the day.
In New York, rescue crews continued to search for survivors in buildings near the destroyed towers of the World Trade Center.
"We do know that there are people in the building that are alive, and we are making every effort to get to them," New York Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik said late Tuesday night, reported CNN.
Almost 300 emergency personnel in New York - 78 missing police officers and 200 firefighters - are presumed dead along with the 266 people on the four hijacked airplanes.
Among those presumed dead is the New York Fire Department's deputy chief and first deputy commissioner. Also presumed dead is Ray Downey, who led the NYFD team that helped out after the bombing in Oklahoma City.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, in his briefing to members of Congress, said the hijackers were working in groups of three to five members.
No information on deaths from the attacks was immediately available, but the toll is certain to be high. The attacks hit just as the New York workday began, when the buildings were filling with people. The towers house about 50,000 employees and 100,000 visitors on a typical day, according to some estimates.
The collapse of the structures showered the streets below with tons of debris.
The rubble at the World Trade Center may yield thousands of bodies of people killed in the attack Tuesday, police and emergency specialists said.
Just how extensive the fatalities might be was not immediately known as damaged gas lines, fires and cascading concrete prevented rescuers from entering the area to look for the injured and dead, officials said.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services dispatched 300 emergency medical and mortuary professionals to New York and Washington to help local health and emergency care providers.
The World Trade Center had two 110-story buildings, known as the "Twin Towers" and five smaller buildings. Tower One was 1,368 feet (414 meters) tall and Tower Two was 1,362 feet (412 meters) tall. Building Seven of the complex also fell last night, it was roughly 47 stories.
The towers were built of aluminum and steel and the foundation of each tower extended more than 70 feet below ground, resting on solid bedrock.
It was constructed on six acres of landfill and completed in 1970.
The towers were the best-known examples of "tube buildings," which are strengthened by closely spaced columns and beams in the outer walls.
Each tower consisted of 104 passenger elevators and 21,800 windows and about 50,000 people worked in the complex, which housed the offices of more than 430 businesses from 26 countries.
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