Posted on: Tuesday, September 18, 2001

The September 11th attack
Fire still burns beneath Trade Center rubble

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Far below the World Trade Center, fires still burn.

The twin towers and their five companion buildings once capped seven levels of below-ground parking, communications and security offices, all shot through with subway tunnels and elevator shafts. Spaces that may have people in them — or bodies.

Reaching those spaces is perhaps the rescue effort's toughest challenge.

"There's a lot of fire very, very deep," Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen said. "But we know we will not be able to put that fire out until we remove the debris."

The fire smolders near a stockpile of Freon, nearly 12 tons of gold and 1,000 tons of silver. The precious metals belong to people trading futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Burning Freon produces a nerve gas that was used to kill combat troops in World War I. EPA spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said yesterday that the supply below the twin towers appears to be in no danger of igniting.

The gold — 0.3 percent of the world's 2000 supply — was worth about $110 million. The silver was worth $133 million.

Of greater value to New Yorkers, perhaps, is their subway system. At least one office building, 7 World Trade Center, which caved in after last week's plane crash, sent steel I-beams stabbing into the tunnel below.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said no one was trapped or killed there. Commuters evacuated from seven commuter trains running to and from New Jersey were safe as well.

However, crews have not been able to reach the Trade Center from underground because of the tunnel collapse.

Most, if not all, the people in the Trade Center's basement probably escaped, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly said. But Hursley Lever, a mechanic at the Trade Center, said he still believes people might be alive in the six basement levels that form a sort of layer-cake space.

City officials said rescue workers cling to the hope of finding a whole floor or tunnel where people were not crushed.

Rescue crews penetrated the lowest underground level beneath the towers on Sunday, reaching the New Jersey commuter train station 80 feet down. They found gaps in the debris but no survivors.

"I saw a car with an interior light on, and I got really hopeful that it was a sign," said James Monsini, a volunteer and demolition expert from Brockton, Mass. "But the person was dead."