Vassnti
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New details of missing foreigners have pushed the number of people believed missing or dead in the rubble of the World Trade Center to 6,333 today as President Bush (news - web sites) urged prayers of support for the victims of the terror attacks.
The swelling number was largely due to new possible victim lists submitted from abroad, said New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (news - web sites) on Thursday.
Citizens of 80 countries were missing and presumed dead in the disaster, Bush said in his address to Congress on Thursday night. More than 130 were Israeli citizens and more than 250 were citizens of India, he said.
Rescue workers today struggled with thundershowers and had to temporarily halt their work early this morning as a lightning storm made it hazardous to work near shattered metal beams.
Although no one has been found alive since Sept. 12, the day after two hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center's twin towers, city officials were not officially transitioning their mission from a rescue to a recovery operation.
But during a radio address on WABC today, Giuliani admitted that few people, if any, were likely to be alive under the rubble of the World Trade Center.
"The chance of recovering anyone alive is very, very small," he said. "We're not going to recover significant numbers of people. We know that. We recognize that."
New York Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen told Reuters his workers had made an unofficial transition from a search for survivors to a search for human remains today.
"It's really happening in a normal kind of a transition that I think is acceptable to everybody and the best way for us to get this done," he said.
An 'Eerie Pompeii'
As emergency workers arrived at the site to replace the exhausted overnight crew on a grim, gray morning, the mood among workers was resolutely hopeful.
So far, 241 bodies have been recovered, but only 170 have been identified by the coroner's office. The dead include 37 police officers, 32 firefighters, two emergency medical technicians, two Port Authority employees and one New Jersey firefighter. The number of injured stands at 6,291
Foreign Nationals Add to List of Missing in Terror Attack