US: Dramatic and previously unreleased details of the September 11th, 2001, attacks on New York were made public yesterday, following a court order that overruled the city's efforts to keep some records of the World Trade Center attack private.
The audio tapes, transcripts of emergency workers' radio dispatches and oral histories by rescuers, recount the harrowing and grim moments when thousands of people were trapped and died in the flames and debris of the Twin Towers.
"Can anybody hear me? I'm a civilian. I'm trapped," says one panicked voice on a fire department radio dispatch tape. "I can't breathe much longer. Save me. I don't have much air. Please help me. I can barely breathe."
On another tape, an emergency worker shouts: "The World Trade Center has collapsed. Urgent. Urgent. Everybody get out."
The city's fire department released roughly 15 hours of radio transmissions and oral histories by more than 500 firefighters and paramedics. These were taken following the attacks which killed almost 3,000 people in the towers, including 343 firefighters.
Some family members have voiced hopes that the transcripts and tapes would help determine whether doomed firefighters failed to hear orders to evacuate or chose to keep trying to save people in the rubble despite the deadly consequences.
The city initially sought not to release many of the transcripts, arguing that some oral histories were made with promises of confidentiality and that some details would upset the families of those who died.
After legal action by the New York Times and several victims' families, a state court of appeals earlier this year ordered the release of much of the information.