World remembers 9/11 attacks
Memorial services are held in New York, London and around the world as victims’ families remember the atrocity that claimed almost 3,000 lives.
Memorial services have been held around the world to mark ten years since the terrorist atrocities of September 11.
Relatives of British victims joined with the American ambassador to the UK Louis Susman for a ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
In New York, US President Barack Obama and his predecessor George W Bush attended a service at Ground Zero. A memorial with two voids where the Twin Towers once stood has been created there.
In London worshippers at St Paul’s prayed for the nearly 3,000 people who died in the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington DC, as well as for those whose lives were changed forever that day.
The service also heard from 9/11 survivor Courtney Cowart, who was nearly buried alive when the north tower of the World Trade Centre collapsed.
She told the congregation: “Entering the heart of darkness, I was terrified. We were dwarfed by immense wreckage looming around us. It was a landscape drained of all colour.”
The prayers were led by several people who lost loved ones on 9/11.
The UK suffered more losses in the 9/11 attacks than any other country apart from America.
About 30 of the bereaved British families attended a remembrance ceremony in London’s Grosvenor Square memorial garden, at which the names of the victims were read out and a white rose laid for each one.
Prime Minister David Cameron and the Prince of Wales joined the victims’ families, along with the Duchess of Cornwall, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Labour leader Ed Miliband and London mayor Boris Johnson.
Islamic protesters outside the US embassy in London set fire to a US flag during a minute’s silence held to mark the moment when the first hijacked airliner hit the World Trade Centre in New York.
Relatives of about ten other UK victims travelled to New York for events organised by the US authorities at Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Centre.
Islamist terrorists hijacked four passenger jets, deliberately flying the first into the north tower of the World Trade Centre at 8.46am local time (1.46pm British time).
Other aircraft were smashed into the World Trade Centre’s south tower and the Pentagon in Washington DC before the final plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after a group of passengers fought back against the hijackers.
The 9/11 attacks claimed the lives of 2,977 innocent people, making them the deadliest terrorist atrocity America has ever experienced.
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