New York City Hall documents confirm air hazards after 9/11 attacks

The air in New York after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, saturated with smoke and soot from fires, was not as safe for health as local authorities claimed. The New York Times came to this conclusion after studying in advance more than 170 thousand documents that the city hall plans to publish.

"In the grim months following the attack on the World Trade Center (WTC), New Yorkers were repeatedly reassured that the air near the collapsed towers was safe to breathe. But air quality documents scheduled to be released Tuesday show that ten months later, experts were still finding asbestos fragments even half a mile away," the report said.

As noted, air quality reports, records of air pollution and internal correspondence from city officials were kept out of sight for almost a quarter of a century in 68 boxes at the city hall and were discovered only a year ago. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered their publication on a special portal ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks. Over the next year, the City is expected to review, edit and make available to the public many additional documents on this topic.

"Albeit fragmentary, the available documentation supports the view that New Yorkers were ordered to return to the area before it was safe to do so, exposing workers and local residents to hazardous toxic substances," the report said.

Mamdani said in this regard that transparency and accountability are the least the city can do for the families of those killed and those who survived.

"More people are believed to have died as a result of illnesses caused by the attack than the nearly three thousand who died as a result of the 9/11 attack itself. They are dying from lung and blood cancers, as well as heart and respiratory diseases," the report said.