Associated Press
Friday, October 20, 2006

NEW YORK, Oct. 19 -- Human remains that appeared to be from World Trade Center victims were excavated by utility workers from a manhole at the northern edge of the site, a Port Authority official said Thursday.

A Consolidated Edison crew clearing the manhole at street level excavated the remains, some as big as arm or leg bones, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.

Con Edison said its workers entered the site Wednesday to remove material from two manholes that had been damaged and abandoned after the collapse of the twin towers.

Crews hauled the excavated materials Wednesday to a work center more than a mile away, as is customary, Con Edison said. On Thursday morning, a contractor working for the Port Authority realized the materials contained remains, Con Edison spokesman Chris Olert said, and the medical examiner's office was contacted.

Five years after 2,749 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks, families of about 1,150 victims still do not know whether their loved ones' remains were recovered.

During the excavation of the 110-story twin towers, which began the evening of the attacks and lasted for nine months, about 20,000 pieces of human remains were found. The DNA in thousands of those pieces was too damaged by heat, humidity and time to yield matches in the many tests forensic scientists have tried over the years.

The city told victims' families last year that it was putting identifications on hold until new DNA technology is developed.