From the Archives: Terror at the Trade Center: Blast Rocks Twin Towers

This article was originally published in Newsday on February 27, 1993

A massive bomb explosion rocked the World Trade Center yesterday, killing at least five people, injuring more than 600  -  400 of whom were taken to hospitals  -  and plunging the world's second-tallest skyscrapers into an urban hell of falling rubble and thick black smoke.

Authorities have not determined who is responsible for the apparent terrorist act. Several groups have claimed responsibility, including Serbian militants protesting the United Nations' food drops to war-torn Bosnia.

Thousands of workers staggered down smoke-filled, pitch-black stairways from as high as 107 stories for hours after the 12:18 p.m. explosion, while six others  -  including a pregnant woman  -  were plucked from the roof by a police helicopter.

"There was fire all around us  -  it was like the `Night of the Living Dead,' " said Bill Demic, a firefighter who was one of the first to respond.  "We didn't think we would see anything alive."

Thousands more were trapped and waited hours to be led from the smoke-filled floors to safety.  Power to the elevators was cut off by Con Edison, officials said.

FBI sources said that between 500 and 1,000 pounds of plastic explosive  -  believed to be C-4, a putty-like substance considered the most powerful non-nuclear explosive  -  were packed into a van parked in the garage under the Vista Hotel and Trade Center towers.  Two smaller bombs are believed to have been placed near the garage door and against a wall adjacent to the PATH station.

The main explosion created a 100-by-200-foot crater that caused concrete and debris to crumble through several floors below, according to law-enforcement sources.  The smaller, simultaneous explosions twisted the heavy metal garage doors and caused a ceiling to collapse in the PATH station.

The official word from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly last night was that "we have not determined the origin of the explosion. " But sources said the explosions were caused by bombs, and said law-enforcement authorities were investigating whether a Serbian group protesting the United Nations  airdrop of food to war-torn Bosnia was responsible.

Kelly said that seven separate callers  -  six who dialed 911 and one who called the First Precinct station house  -  claimed responsibility after the explosion.  The person who called the station house identified himself as a member of the Serbian Liberation Front and accurately identified the level on which the bombs had been placed.

Sources said at least one phone call warning about the bombing was placed to 911 about 15 minutes before the blast.  A tape of that call is being analyzed by the FBI, sources said.

A top federal law-enforcement official said last night that possible explanations for the bombing ranged from Croatian militants to links with the recent shootings outside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia.

"Everyone's got a theory.  The FBI has one theory.  The police have another theory.  The ATF [Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms Bureau] has another theory," the official said.  "But no one's sure at this point. " Later in the afternoon a caller to 911 claimed that a bomb explosion was imminent at the Empire State Building, the city's next-tallest structure, and thousands of workers there were evacuated.

The massive parking garage explosion was a "directed blast," sources said, meaning that the force was concentrated in one direction  -  down. It blew the crater and a hole in the floor below, filling three more floors with smashed concrete, blazing cars and exploding tires and was where rescue workers found the dead.  Most of the Secret Service's local fleet of cars, including a backup limo used for presidential visits, was destroyed.  The explosion also blew open the underground vaults of the Bank of Kuwait.

Police dogs and rescue crews  -  some tethered to a 400-foot-long rope  -  were combing through twisted metal in total darkness to search for others who were feared missing.

The identities of the dead had not been released last night, although authorities said one was a woman and at least four may have been Port Authority workers.  All five were in an office adjacent to the parking garage, and one of the victims was pronounced dead at St. Vincent's Hospital.

Of the 652 people who were injured, 476 reportedly were taken to hospitals.

Most of the injured were employees of businesses in the World Trade Center towers who had been overcome by the rising smoke.   Fire marshals are investigating why the smoke was able to climb more than 50 floors and suspect the explosions blew out backup generators to the ventilation system.

More than 400 people were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, officials said.

Above ground, thousands of office workers from the 110-story twin towers staggered down dozens of flights of darkened stairs, covered in black soot and gasping for oxygen.

"It was the scariest moment of my . . . life," said stockbroker Jonathan Werz, 23, seconds after making his way by stairs from the 105th floor of One World Trade Center, which took nearly 90 minutes.  "I just need air. " His face was covered in soot.

A police helicopter rescued a pregnant woman and five others from the observation deck on the top of Two World Trade Center, while on the lower levels of both towers panicked employees shattered windows for air.

Also, two groups of elementary school students apparently were trapped for a time on an observation deck on the 107th floor, although authorities reported that all were safe.  More children were trapped in an elevator.

There was no way of tallying how many rescue workers and law-enforcement officers responded to the explosions, although as many as 600 firefighters were there and at least 15 of them were injured.  A 10-block stretch of West Street was closed for all the rescue vehicles.

One fire official called it the "largest response in the history of the city. "

Hours after the explosions, firefighters finally opened an elevator on the 44th floor and discovered nine or 10 people huddled on the floor, two unconscious.  "At first we thought we saw ten bodies," said firefighter Mike Dugan.  "It was like a scene from a movie. "

As late as 9 p.m., people were still being evacuated from the top floors of One World Trade Center.

Port Authority police noted yesterday that areas of the parking garage where the blast occurred had previously been contaminated with asbestos, although city officials downplayed the risk of contamination.

President Bill Clinton called Gov.  Mario Cuomo  -  whose two top aides, Drew Zambelli and Mary Ann Crotty, were trapped in a state office on the 57th floor  -  to offer assistance, and officials in Washington said they were watching the terrorist angle closely.

"We're monitoring the situation," said White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers.  "Obviously we're keeping a close watch.  But nobody knows anything yet.  The FBI is waiting to get into the garage. "

Mayor David N. Dinkins was half the world away, on a business-seeking trip to Japan, but his press secretary, Leland Jones, informed him at 4 a.m. Japanese time of the catastrophe.  Later, Dinkins called Clinton, and the president promised to provide whatever help the city will need.

Also last night, the FBI was taking a leading role in the investigation, setting up a command center in the lobby ballroom of the Vista Hotel.  But at 7 p.m. they had to evacuate the room because of fears the concrete floor could collapse.

The downtown financial district resembled a war zone, with wailing sirens and dozens of police cars slicing through the midday traffic and dozens of soot-covered victims hugging co-workers on the streets, or lining up at telephones to call relatives.  The explosions  -  which some compared to an earthquake  -  shook office towers blocks away.

"I heard a bomb  -  the biggest bomb you could imagine," said Eddie Levin, 23, an employee of Israeli Shipping Co. who was eating lunch across the street from his office at One World Trade Center at the time of the blasts.  He said he ran to West Street and saw ambulance attendants treating a maintenance man covered in blood.

Rescue workers said only a bomb could have caused the widespread destruction they saw.  "My opinion is from the size of the hole blown in that floor, it would be more than a transformer," said firefighter Jeff Mulligan, who was one of the first to respond and who pulled an unconscious worker from a machinery room in the basement.  Other workers described a dirty smell similar to a boiler.

One firefighter, Kevin Shea from Rescue Company No. 1, reportedly fell 50 feet in the rubble of the garage and broke both his legs.

In the Vista Hotel, closest to the explosions, guests poured onto the street or the nearby World Financial Center, some with no shoes or wearing only bathrobes despite yesterday's cold and snow flurries. Merrill Lynch, which is in the financial center, set up a temporary shelter for the hotel guests in its cafeteria.

At the PATH station underneath the World Trade Center, where thousands of commuters board trains to New Jersey, one of the explosions knocked out as much as 180 feet of a cinderblock wall.  One person, who apparently was passing through a turnstile in the concourse immediately above the tracks, was seriously injured by a cinderblock.

Guy Jean, 40, was working at Coffee Express on level B1 just above the blast.

"The whole ceiling fell on us," Jean said.  "We heard a big explosion.  Everything fell on top of us.  I told my boss I couldn't breathe. " Jean said he got out when someone appeared with a flashlight and led him outside.

Police said that some debris apparently came down onto the passenger platforms, but no trains were damaged.  All PATH service into lower Manhattan was suspended at least through today.

Although much of the carnage took place underground, some of the most amazing stories took place high in the sky, as thick black smoke filled the two office towers  -  where 130,000 people visit or work every day  -  within a couple of moments of the bomb blasts.

Yasyuki Shibata, an employee of Nippon Express, had just sat down for lunch at Windows on the World when the bombs exploded, a quarter of a mile below him.  "From Windows on the World we went to Windows on Hell," Shibata said when he finally tumbled onto the street about 90 minutes later.

Andrea Immer, the cellarmaster at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors of One World Trade Center, said about 60 people, including staff, were forced to evacuate.  With smoke billowing up the stairway, Immer said restaurant workers cut up napkins and dipped them in water pitchers so everyone could breathe.

She described the stairs going down as "an endless switchback stairwell with people two to three abreast as far as you can see.  People on every step.  On every landing."

Some of those who made it safely out of the twin towers took refuge across the street at the Edward Moran Bar and Grill, which is managed by Christopher Carey, the son of former Gov.  Hugh Carey.  He said of the survivors: "They looked like they came out of coal mines, except with attache cases and overcoats. "

The World Trade Center towers are the city's tallest structures, its largest job center and a major transportation hub, so the explosion affected millions of people in one way or another.  Most of the city's TV stations have their antennas on top of the center, and so suburbanites without cable TV couldn't get reception.   Two commodity exchanges in the World Trade Center were closed down.

More than 100,000 subway riders were delayed during the evening rush hour yesterday as  the A, E, N, R, C, 1 and 9 lines were rerouted from the World Trade Center.  Those lines carry more than 25,000 riders an hour.  The rerouting was completed at the request of the Office of Emergency Management.

In addition, express bus service on 22 buses that run from downtown Manhattan to Staten Island was canceled because the buses were unable to enter Manhattan through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.