Toll Rises to 6,333

Blair, senators vow solidarity with the city

This story was reported by Margaret Ramirez, Mae M. Cheng, Errol A. Cockfield Jr., Sean Gardiner, Karen Freifeld and supplemented with wire reports; it was written by Bobby Cuza.

September 21, 2001

A worker takes a break yesterday morning from the search effort at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. (AP Photo)

The city's already battered psyche was dealt another jarring blow yesterday when Mayor Rudolph Giuliani revealed the number of missing people has climbed to 6,333 - an increase of 911.

The demoralizing new numbers cast a long shadow over a day in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a U.S. Senate delegation visited the city to pledge support, and city officials announced plans to bolster the stock market by investing $800 million of city pension funds.

"We're all staggered by this," said Dave Richards, a Salt Lake City resident and member of one of several federal Urban Search and Rescue teams still sifting through the wreckage. "Five thousand is a high number. But 6,300 is even more overwhelming."

As it did last Friday, rain slowed the rescue efforts yesterday at the wreckage site, which yielded no survivors for an eighth consecutive day. The number of dead recovered now stands at 241, up from 233.

Giuliani said the stunning increase in missing people is attributable to foreigners not previously included in the official tally, including 250 British nationals.

Yesterday afternoon at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan, Blair attended an hour-long service memorializing those victims. British and American flags were placed at the altar, and the national anthems of both nations were played during the interfaith service.

Thousands of British nationals packed the Gothic-style cathedral, including more than 75 family or friends of the missing.

"Around the whole of the world, there is profound solidarity ... There is the surging of the human spirit," Blair said. "The bonds between our two countries - so strong for so long - are even stronger today."

A message from Queen Elizabeth II was also read aloud. "Nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and pain of these moments," she wrote. "Grief is the price we pay for love."

Blair was part of a parade of luminaries to visit town yesterday.

One unexpected visitor was boxing legend and Muslim convert Muhammad Ali. Wearing a blue Fire Department baseball cap, the three-time heavyweight champion met with workers at Ground Zero in an attempt to boost morale.

In remarks to reporters, Ali expressed sadness at recent attacks on Islam. Citywide, there have been 56 bias attacks against Arabs and Arab-Americans since Sept. 11, most of them verbal, Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said yesterday.

"Islam means peace," Ali said, "and I couldn't just sit home and see Muslims be blamed for these problems.

"Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water," Ali told the rescue workers. "Just as religions do - they all contain truths."

Earlier in the day, in an extraordinary display of bipartisanship, more than 40 U.S. senators arrived by train in order to tour the disaster site.

The delegation, which came at the invitation of New York's two senators, Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, held a press conference afterward at Pier 92, where the city has established its emergency operations center.

"I'm from a part of the country that has been hit by hurricanes repeatedly," Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said. "I've seen the devastation from tornadoes, from ice storms, drought - all kinds of disasters. But I must say, I have never seen anything comparable to what we've seen here today, the magnitude of it, and the horror of it.

"America has been hit a tremendous blow," he said. "But it has not blown us apart. It has pulled us together."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said the group's message was a simple one: "We are Americans in complete unity with our New York and New Jersey friends."

Meanwhile, on a day when stocks dropped sharply - the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 380 points - city officials took steps to "shore up the stock market" and "convey the message that we have great faith in the economy."