September 11th Victim Remains Found at Ground Zero

Another sad reminder of the day America was attacked:

Human remains found at Ground Zero
The Daily Telegraph
October 21, 2006 12:00

CONSTRUCTION workers tearing up a temporary roadway at Ground Zero have made an astounding discovery - at least a dozen human remains and two wallets belonging to September 11 victims.

The area at the northwest edge of the World Trade Centre disaster site was supposed to have been searched long ago - and the Fire Department of New York, which had supervised the vast recovery operation, could offer no explanation yesterday.
Even more stunned by the discovery of the remains - including large, partially intact arms and legs - were victims' relatives, for whom the land where the twin towers once stood is sacred ground.

As workers in hazardous-material suits examined the bones at a station owned by the Consolidated Edison energy company 1.5km from Ground Zero, Charles Wolf rushed to the unsettling scene, hoping that the remains of his 40-year-old wife Katherine had been found.

"We've got family members here who are aching inside because of this and they can't believe that after all the promises that were made, we're still finding things," Mr Wolf, 52, said.

Five years after 2749 people were killed in the attacks, the remains of about 1150 victims still have not been identified.

The grisly find was made at street level on Thursday morning, local time, behind where a podium is set up on September 11 anniversaries to allow victims' families to read the names of the lost.

The area also had been used as a temporary road so cranes could access the site.

Utility workers began ripping up the asphalt on Wednesday to excavate a manhole and feeder cable that have sat dormant since September 11.

The crew pumped dirt out of the manhole and hauled it back to a Consolidated Edison yard.

It wasn't until Thursday morning that Con Ed workers stumbled across the human remains inside a gigantic, underground junction box, Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said.

At least three body parts had not decomposed entirely. The utility workers took the remains to the yard and then called the medical examiner.

It's a sad reminder that so many families have been denied even the emotional closure of a body of a loved one to bury. And a sad reminder of families whose hearts ache with the loss of those loved ones every singe day.

And unfortunately, in a political season, it's a sad reminder that we have some people more interested in extending constitutional protections to the men who plotted and planned these attacks than in protecting the civil right to life of the survivors and justice for the victims.