The 911 death toll continues to rise 11 years later

11 years ago today I was visiting a former school in Mansfield with Trevor Bossons of Boss Plant when the radio announcer said that “reports are coming that a small plane has flown into the World Trade Centre”. Initially I pictured a Cessna or similar sticking out of the tower and the pilot being rescued, then as the news came through the full horror of the event started to unfold.

I phoned Jill at home and said “put Sky News on as a plane has flown into the Trade Centre”. I drove around my other visits in the Mansfield area listening to the radio news and realised that the world would never be the same again.

What I didn’t know was that the WTC was a structural steel building with fire protection to the steelwork by sprayed asbestos and that asbestos breaks down at a temperature of around 1,400C and, as such, would release fibres when the towers burned, the steel became plastic and then collapsed releasing, in the words of an ABC broadcaster, “a massive cloud of smoke” that rolled across the area.

We now know that the cloud was in fact dust and asbestos fibres and thousands of people on the ground in New York that day would breath in those fibres and may, many years later develop the symptoms of mesothelioma.

Asbestos related diseases develop over a 10 year period after the initial exposure and we are now seeing survivors of 911, and persons who were in the area on the day, with asbestos related symptoms and, in some cases, with mesothelioma. Recently we heard of the death of Donna Summer from an asbestos disease reported as being contracted from breathing in asbestos fibres on the day of the WTC terror attack.

The attack killed around 3,000 people at the time and may now kill many thousands more as asbestos fibres breathed in on the day have been in their lungs ever since and could now have developed into asbestos related cancers and mesothelioma.

Asbestos kills over 250,000 people a year throughout the EU and over 4,000 people a year in the UK (more than on UK roads), so remember the UK Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 and ensure that before any demolition you have in your possession a Demolition & Refurbishment survey, all people who may be exposed to asbestos have received Asbestos Awareness training, and removal of the material is only done by fully trained operatives.

Asbestos kills – fact!