The hijacked jets had struck early enough in the day that the trade center was far from full.The towers had 40,000 employees and 150,000 daily visitors.

The Numbers have risen as high as 6,789 on Sept 24, but have dropped considerably , since duplicates and incorrect listings have been removed from lists of the missing.  The number of dead is expected to rise with families obtaining death certificates.

Three months after the World Trade Center attack, victims' families are being forced to face the ghastly possibility that many of the dead were ``vaporized,'' as the medical examiner put it, and may never be identified.  The combination of fire and compression from tons of rubble could reduce a human body to a small amount of tissue and bone, said Dr. Cyril Wecht, a top forensic pathologist in Pittsburgh. And finding such small samples of DNA in 1.2 million tons of rubble spread over 16 acres is a difficult proposition..

Many victims will undoubtedly be identified. 753 Bodies and another 15,000 body parts have been pulled from the mountains of mangled metal and matchstick-size splinters at ground zero, leaving many of the victims to be identified by DNA alone.

The city and work crews say the cleanup has gone faster than expected due to longer shifts and a prevailing attitude that victims' families deserve their relentless labor. Workers also credit the speedy progress to a mild winter.  The once-daunting job of whittling away at the World Trade Center's ruins was supposed to take a year and run as much as $7 billion, but workers now expect to remove the last of the rubble by summer at a cost estimated to be closer to $1 billion.

1,394,376 tons of World Trade Center debris have been removed from ground zero in 96,433 truckloads. The debris figure represents about 83 percent of the total, with cleanup expected to finish by early June.  Streets covered with ash and debris after the Sept. 11 attack have been cleaned and are filled with people, many back at their homes and offices and others coming to see the destruction with their own eyes.

A creed among warriors since Roman centurions were carried home on their shields, it has been redefined since Sept. 11 especially by the New York Fire Department, which has stationed workers at the site around the clock. The department lost 343 members in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

The recent discovery of a lode of remains in the wreckage-filled pit where the south tower once stood has given new hope that most of the firefighters and the 23 city and 37 Port Authority officers lost that day may ultimately be found and identified. This month alone, 3,000 body parts were found.

"We always bring our members out," said Tom Manley, health and safety officer for the firefighters union. "Talk to anyone, from the chiefs to the probies (probationary firefighters) and they all say the same thing, You bring everybody home. ... And that includes all the civilians."

Nearly 500 foreigners from countries all over the world were killed in the World Trade Center attack, accounting for one in six of the victims, according to the most complete city tally yet. The Actual number was 494 which came from 91 countries and accounted for more than 17 percent of those killed.

New York City:     2,823 Victims
150 Still Missing (not found & no claims)
1102 Identified and Confirmed Dead
1,571 Death Certificates Issued with no remains

American Airlines Flight 11, flying from Boston, Massachusetts to Los Angeles, California, had 81 passengers, nine crew members and two pilots aboard. The Boeing 767 crashed into the 1 World Trade Center in New York City.

United Airlines Flight 175, from Boston to Los Angeles, contained 56 passengers, seven crew members and two pilots. This plane crashed into the 2 World Trade Center tower.

Washington D.C.:     189 believed Dead
Pentagon - 125 Lost

American Airlines Flight 77, flying from Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, had 58 passengers, four crew members and two pilots, it crashed into the Pentagon.

Pennsylvania     44 Dead in Plane Crash

United Airlines Flight 93, flying from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The plane, also a Boeing 757, held 37 passengers, five crew members and two pilots.

At the World Trade Center fire, 343 firefighters, many of them among the first to arrive at the scene, were reported missing following the collapses at the site. and are now believed to be dead. It's now estimated that 130 of the 343 firefighters bodies have been found, mainly in pockets of the rubble at or below the surface.

The city's five rescue companies Lost All of the firefighters who responded to the attacks; they account for 75 firefighters either declared dead or missing and The Special Operations Command lost 95 of its 452 firefighters and fire officers. The department also must replace 89 destroyed vehicles, including 18 fire engines, 13 ladder trucks, and five rescue unit trucks,

The rebuilding began almost immediately. In a somber ceremony days after the terrorist attacks, 168 firefighters were promoted to help fill holes in the command structure.

New York City Reports 71 Officers Missing or Dead