Terror Grips Manhattan After Catastrophe

NEW YORK, Tuesday - Sheer terror swept lower Manhattan on Tuesday after the collapse of the first of two 110-storey World Trade Center towers with people screaming “we’re going to die” as they stampeded in fear of being engulfed in a cloud of debris, smoke and dust. Thousands of people poured into the streets in panic, choking on white ash billowing over a 20-block radius around the towers. “I looked outside and saw a big chunk of the World Trade Center missing,” said Verizon employee Ellen Leon. “Fifteen minutes later I saw people jumping out of the building. Bodies were flying out. I don’t know if they were already dead or if they were just going to die.” Throngs of people raced up lower Broadway blocks north of the terror attack, yelling, “It’s coming for us,” “Run,” and “We’re going to die,” with smoke wedged between the skyscrapers of the financial district. “I’m scared and I want to go home,” said Lloyd Clark, a stunned bus driver who was standing on a corner waiting for his handicapped passengers to be evacuated from a nearby building. Clark had witnessed with disbelief two planes crashing into each of the twin towers within 20 minutes of each other at the height of the morning rush hour Tuesday. “What are the odds of two planes hitting the same building?” said one New York City police officer. Two passenger planes, the first around 8:45am (1245 GMT), crashed into the towers where tens of thousands work, causing the 28-year-old concrete columns to cave in, one at a time, in a cloud of debris and smoke more than an hour after the hit. Rob Nelson said he had clearly seen the red and blue AA logo of American Airlines on the first plane. “The plane looked strange. It was flying very low, heading south, and it hit the north side of the building,” Nelson said. From the Wall Street district to Times Square to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, normally bustling New Yorkers stood in shock. Much of the city shut down. The area’s three major airports, Kennedy LaGuardia and Newark, N.J., were closed. Sirens blared as ambulances, police cars and fire engines raced through the streets of the nation’s most densely populated city of 8 million. Then there was then a brief period of relative calm. Helicopters buzzed around the burning towers. No one seemed to anticipate the impending collapse of two icons of New York City’s skyline. Suddenly, about one hour after the first plane crash, the upper half of the south tower crumbled into a gigantic churning mass of smoke, steel and flying glass. The air was choked with smoke and the pungent smell of burning. Crowds gasped at the mind-boggling sight. Men and women wept as they fled. After the buildings collapsed, people moved in every direction in a scene of total chaos. Ends