 |
 |
Irish Times NY toll may be less than 3,000 Conor O Cleary 26-10-01 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Almost every day the official number of people declared dead and missing in the World Trade Centre attack is revised downwards - by 500 in the last week alone - as duplication and errors are discovered, reports Conor O'Clery THE US: The most recent figure compiled by the New York Police Department is 4,764 dead or missing combined from the twin towers and the two aircraft which struck them on September 11th. However, totals independently compiled by the New York Times, USA Today and the Associated Press are much lower. The New York Times can account for 2,943 dead or missing, USA Today 2,680 and AP 2,625. These include figures reported by companies of their casualties which in some cases are lower than widely reported. Cantor Fitzgerald, the worst affected firm, lost 657 staff, not the 750 originally thought. The media totals do not include undocumented workers but their number is unlikely to be more than a few dozen. It seems now that the final death toll will be much closer to 3,000 than the estimate of 6,000 in the days after the attacks. This points to the extraordinary success of the operation to clear people from the lower parts of the buildings and the concourse below in the 90 minutes before both towers collapsed. New Jersey officials who first thought that the state had lost 1,500 residents now put the figure at 525. The American Red Cross which is paying cheques to the families of the killed and missing, has only processed 2,563 cases.