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Bone Fragments Found Near World Trade Center Site

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 March 2006, 18:00 CST

By Ellen Freilich

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Construction workers cleaning a vacant building near the World Trade Center site have found bone fragments and human remains, officials said on Tuesday.

The four fragments will be tested to determine if they are remains of victims of the September 11 attacks, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner.

The remains were found in late January and on March 24 in the Deutsche Bank building, a 41-story neighbor of the twin towers that was severely damaged when the towers collapsed in the 2001 attack, she said.

Some remains were discovered on the 38th floor and others were found on the roof.

Ten human bone fragments were found on the rooftop in the fall.

The medical examiner's office will determine whether the newest remains are human and then try to match them to existing DNA profiles, Borakove said.

The remains were found by crews cleaning the building before construction workers begin dismantling it in June.

"If the DNA extracted doesn't have enough points to match to a person, it's a partial identification, but we're doing a lot of things to try to generate new technology to identify people with a partial DNA profile," Borakove said.

Recovering the remains of victims of the attacks has been a slow process, and identifying victims from tiny fragments such as bone shards has not always been possible.

Borakove said the medical examiner's office has identified partial remains from 1,595 people of the 2,749 killed.

Some 9,720 unidentified bone and tissue fragments have been sealed and stored in case developments in technology make identification possible in the future, officials have said.

Source: REUTERS

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