Consulates to Help Identify Nationals

By Mae M. Cheng | STAFF WRITER

September 19, 2001

More than 100 representatives of foreign countries met yesterday with city officials to coordinate efforts to identify the hundreds of people from abroad who are among the victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attack.

Consulates were asked to help gather the names of their nationals who are missing as well as to collect DNA samples from their families, said officials who were at the approximately hour-long meeting at a hotel near the United Nations.

"This is tough and it's a huge job when with this number of people, you need records from and DNA of," said Dr. James Young, chief coroner of the Canadian province of Ontario who also worked to identify the victims in the 1998 Swiss Air crash over Nova Scotia.

Young has begun contacting the families of Canadian nationals thought to be missing in the Twin Tower collapse. He is asking them for toothbrushes, hairbrushes, combs, unwashed underclothing or cigarette butts from the missing victims as well as DNA samples from family members.

He and a deputy coroner are in New York to assist in the collection of DNA samples, which will be handed over to city officials working to identify the victims.

Still unaccounted for are up to 75 Canadians, the majority of whom worked at the World Trade Center. Britain, among the foreign countries to suffer the greatest casualties, is reporting that up to 300 of its nationals may be missing. Also among those unaccounted for are about 100 Germans and approximately 70 Australians.

Because there are hundreds of foreign nationals missing from in or around the World Trade Center, the city's official number of people unaccounted for skyrocketed overnight Sunday to Monday from 4,957 to 5,422.

"The addition of numbers yesterday [Monday] was as a result of some of the embassies believing that some of their people, foreign nationals, may have been in the building," said Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.

Staff writers Bobby Cuza and Margaret Ramirez contributed to this story.