• Back to Menu
  
  
• Home

Good Will Prevail Over Evil

People on the streets below saw bodies falling from the first building - presumably jumping as the only alternative to perishing in the intense heat of the explosion.

Later it was reported that another plane had crashed on the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth had crashed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. All planes had been hijacked, seemingly by extremist religious terrorists, and had been aimed, as suicide missiles, at the selected buildings. Each airliner was carrying passengers who also perished in the attacks. A total of 266 passengers and crew died.

TV programmes showed us again and again the horrifying pictures of the World Trade Centre attack. Then in the hour and a half that followed, first the Southern Tower collapsed and then we saw the unbelievable collapse of the Northern Tower as the top floors above the area of impact gave way causing the rest of the building to fall in on itself like a house of cards.

Up to 50,000 people worked in the twin towers. Thousands of tourists and visitors passed through the building every day. Nobody knows how many had managed to evacuate the buildings in time. Nobody could even begin to guess how many had died. The mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, who was on the scene immediately after the first crash, estimated that the losses would be more than we could bear. Many members of the emergency services, those who were first to arrive, were at the foot of the towers, or even inside the buildings when they collapsed. It is thought that some 300 or more have died.

The American President, George Bush, announced, "Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. Freedom will be defended."

British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, declared, "As for those who have carried out these attacks, there are no adequate words of condemnation. Their utter barbarism will stand as their shame for all eternity.
"This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world. The people who perpetrate it have no regard whatever for the sanctity of human life. We, the democracies of the world must come together to defeat it and eradicate it."
He added, "This is not a battle between the United States and terrorism but between the free and democratic world and terrorism. We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in their hour of tragedy and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world."

BBC TV News announced that it was expected that churches in America would be packed on Sunday as Americans struggle to come to terms with grief and with what had happened.
15 September 2001