They could not be reached in time because of the immense depth of the rubble. They were heard on fire department radios, or their bodies, with no apparent fatal injuries, were found days or weeks later, almost intact, inside protective pockets deep in the tangle of steel and cement at Ground Zero. Other people - no one knows how many - also survived the immediate collapse. the towers compacted into a rubble pile that filled a six-story basement and rose six stories above ground. When the buildings fell - the south tower at 9:59 a.m., the north tower at 10:28 a.m. The survivors had one thing in common: All ended up near the top of the debris.
The newspaper interviewed nine survivors and consulted construction experts and the architectural and engineering plans of the twin towers. USA TODAY took a comprehensive look at who survived the collapse and why. Two police officers, trapped in debris between the towers, barely survived both collapses. One man remembers falling from a 22nd floor stairwell in the north tower and regaining consciousness atop the 12-story-deep pile of rubble at Ground Zero.
They escaped death in the most unlikely of ways and in the most surprising of places.įourteen people survived inside the remnants of a stairwell at the center of the north tower. Miraculously, 20 people survived the collapse, amid steel beams, concrete slabs and other wreckage. The bodies of 2,803 human beings were buried when the World Trade Center crumbled into 3 billion pounds of debris. 11 terror attacks, USA TODAY is republishing articles published in 2002 for the first anniversary.
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