The city of New York is preparing to remember this Thursday 9/11, an attack that still today adds names to the list of victims, who are dying of respiratory diseases.
Nearly 3,000 people perished on September 11, 2001, when a group of Al Qaeda terrorists crashed two planes into the Twin Towers, plus one each into the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.
9/11 24 years later still claiming victims
But 9/11 has left a trail of victims over the past 24 years who, in the vicinity of the affected areas, inhaled dust and developed respiratory diseases or cancers.
“Many more people have died from health effects since 9/11 than died on that day,” said 9/11 Memorial Museum Director and CEO Elizabeth Hillman at a press conference.
For example, in recent years, more than 400 firefighters involved in rescue efforts in New York have died of illnesses, compared with 343 who died on the same day, according to Hillman.
According to the World Trade Center Health Program, some 400,000 people were exposed to the dust on September 11.
New York will remember the victims of 9/11 this Thursday, September 11, in a ceremony in which every year the names of each of the people who lost their lives in the Twin Towers and in the planes that crashed into the Pentagon and Pennsylvania are read.
Immediately following the ceremony, those who have passed away from 9/11-related illnesses, as well as workers who helped rescue victims that day and survivors, will be honored.
The emotional aftereffects still persist
Twenty-four years after 9/11, Desirée Bouchat still remembers the faces of the colleagues she left behind in the South Tower and is able to trace with precision the path she followed to escape the attacks.
At the press conference, Bouchat recalls that the “clear, blue” sky that New York dawned with that morning turned “brown” after the first plane hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m.
After the attack, she and some of her colleagues decided to evacuate their building.
“I managed to get on one of the last elevators going down to the first floor with three colleagues.
“I can tell you it was 9:03 because at that time United Flight 175 came into our building,” he recalled, his voice cracking.
Their manager, Jim, who had encouraged them to go home after the first plane hit, did not make it out of the South Tower.
“Even today, I come here and the faces of the names I read on the memorial come to mind,” Bouchat, wearing a vest full of brooches, some of them gifts from tourists visiting the museum, told EFE.
Bouchat’s story and others like her are what the 9/11 memorial wants to remember at Thursday’s ceremony.
“There are a lot of politicians joining us that day, a lot of important figures. None of them have a starring role for us,” Hillman said.
At Thursday’s 9/11 ceremony 24 years later, the vice president, JD Vance, and the second lady, Usha Vance, will be present, although Hillman insisted that “it is important that this not be a political exercise, but one of commemoration and tribute to the people who lost their lives.”
JD Vance’s attendance at the ceremony comes just days after news broke that U.S. President Donald Trump plans to turn the museum and memorial over to the federal government, a topic Hillman declined to address during the press conference.
Aún hoy, vengo aquí y se me vienen a la mente las caras de los nombres que leo en el memorial
Desirée Bouchat, sobreviviente del 11S
With information from EFE
