More remains found near WTC site

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

6:31 AM EDT, April 6, 2006

Construction workers discovered 74 bone fragments over the weekend at a vacant skyscraper across from the World Trade Center site, officials said.

Most of the fragments were found mixed with a type of gravel that had been raked to the sides of the roof of the Deutsche Bank building, which has been empty since it suffered extensive damage in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"This is the largest find from the Deutsche Bank, and I would not be surprised if additional quantities of remains are found there," Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office, told The New York Times in Thursday's editions. "They are still doing the cleanup."

Deconstruction of the building, which is contaminated with asbestos, lead and trade center dust, began last September, and workers are expected to start taking down the building floor by floor in June.

In recent months workers found four more human body parts in the building, after finding 10 bone fragments on the rooftop last fall. In the most recent discovery, workers retrieved 82 samples, 74 of which proved to be human remains, Borakove said.

She said that all the remains will be given DNA testing, and stored indefinitely if they cannot be linked to anyone.

More than 40 percent of the 2,749 people killed at the trade center have not been identified. The medical examiner's office is storing more than 9,000 unidentified remains and hopes that more sophisticated DNA technology can allow for identifications in the future.