MANHATTAN AFTERSHOCK

September 2001 – 6’29’’

**NOTE – The Archive footage from 9/11/2001 is not to be sold separately **

02.11 – WTC - 02.47

03.10 – WTC – 03.28

07.14 – WTC - 07.27

08.13 – WTC – 08.17

KERRY O'BRIEN: While the rest of America resounds with talk of war, downtown Manhattan is still in a state of shock. It's nearly a week since the terrorist attacks, but emergency workers have so far recovered just 190 bodies, with nearly 5,000 more still missing. And while that search drags on through the rubble, millions of New Yorkers have to try to reclaim some sense of normality in their lives, as they struggle to come to terms with the horror.

ABC correspondent Philip Williams spent a day with some of the survivors.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Imagine this in Melbourne, in Brisbane or in Sydney - Centrepoint Tower destroyed, the Opera House in ruins, the Harbour Bridge collapsed. Imagine the trauma, the suffering of the families with loved ones buried.

This is the reality of New York, ground zero and the surrounds not just home to the world's financial centre, but also around 50,000 people, like Sarah and Peter Pulkkinen, allowed back to their apartment just long enough to gather a few belongings and get out.

Like many here, Peter works in the stock market, his office just metres away from the World Trade Center when the first plane hit.

PETER PULKKINEN, NEW YORK RESIDENT: It was almost like if you were opening a can of tennis balls and the pressure on the other side blew people, chairs and tables and what have you out the side of the building and then you saw just a ring of fire. I work literally 60 feet away.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: At the same time wife Sarah was at home, a few blocks away. She immediately ran towards the disaster site, though she wishes she hadn't.

SARAH PULKKINEN, NEW YORK RESIDENT: And I watched as people fell to their deaths and it was the most horrific thing I've ever seen and also I was there when the second plane hit. There was a stampede to go north and a real fear for your life obviously hit then.

PETER PULKKINEN: We were able to get out, which is - we're very lucky. We consider ourselves very lucky, versus colleagues and people we know that weren't so lucky.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: You know some people that are missing?

PETER PULKKINEN: Yeah.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: It must be extremely difficult.

PETER PULKKINEN: Everybody around here does.

SARAH PULKKINEN: In one sense things will never be the same, with the memories and the things that we both saw that day.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: They leave not knowing when they'll be back, doubtful life will ever return to normal. Around ground zero everyone is attempting to piece something of their old lives together, washing away the dust of the pulverised buildings, but there's no sweeping away the horrific memories.

At the local wine store friends have rallied to help owner Michael Platt. Many of his customers are buried in the rubble just a few blocks away.

MICHAEL PLATT, WINE SHOP OWNER: The economic ramifications of this are going to be far-reaching. My business in particular, being a block south of Wall Street, survives on the Christmas holidays.

What kind of holiday season am I going to have? A lot of my customers are gone, a lot of people I knew and worked with are gone. It's hard. It's very hard.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Outside, temporary power cables snake through the streets, underground tunnels are flooded. With thousands of troops and police on guard, there's no semblance of the city of just a week ago. Most residents are simply packing bags and getting out as fast as they can.

NEW YORK RESIDENT 1: It's horrible. It's horrible. You don't feel safe going anywhere. So I'm just glad - we want to get out of this area now.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: You feel unsafe here now?

NEW YORK RESIDENT 1: Yeah.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Just how insecure I was about to discover.

POLICE OFFICER: Get out of here! Get out!

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Police yell for everyone to run for their lives and no-one knows why. This fear is easily triggered, horrific images far too fresh in everyone's mind. We've just been told to clear out of this area. We're not sure why.

But such is the level of fear and panic that as soon as that order was given everyone just high tailed it out of here.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Excuse me, do you know what's going on?

NEW YORK RESIDENT 2: The Liberty is falling down. It's buckling and it's coming down.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Did you see it?

NEW YORK RESIDENT 2: No, but it's just right there. But we live right there.

NEW YORK RESIDENT 3: We live right on the block and we just heard people shrieking and running down the block.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: The building that we'd been standing under a few seconds ago is about to collapse. That's what we're told and at this stage we don't know it's a false alarm. I find Julie Harvey struggling to evacuate the area.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: What have you got in here?

JULIE HARVEY, NEW YORK RESIDENT: My entire life. I just packed it.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: You're just getting out of here?

JULIE HARVEY: Well, I just need a few things right now. My place is covered with ash.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Keeping her mind occupied on the problems at hand, she tells me she hasn't had time to reflect on the terrible things she and her friends have witnessed.

JULIE HARVEY: The problem is a lot of these people have seen flying body parts, they've seen people jumping from windows, people running from the exhaust. I've been in there 12 hours, like 'the day of', just photographing.

I was right on the site 'the day of' because it was amazing.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: A few metres away army medic Albert Belaunay is coping as best he can, unprepared like everyone else for the scale and horror of this urban slaughter.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: You're trained to save lives and yet tragically there were so few lives to be saved, weren't there?

ALBERT BELAUNAY, ARMY MEDIC: Yes.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: It must be very hard for you?

ALBERT BELAUNAY: Yeah, it set newspaper back a few steps when we were working down there and all you're finding is pieces or, you know, half bodies. So, I mean, it's different.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: How have you coped with that? I know you're in the military, you're trained to accept that sort of thing, but you can't possibly have ever been trained for this situation in a civilian sense?

ALBERT BELAUNAY: No. You really don't. I mean, I'll admit I broke down after, you know, a while. You just deal with it.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Those ghastly experiences clearly mark everyone here. Relating to those outside the cordon isn't easy.

The financial realities of this calamity have yet to be tested, but today may be the day. It's hard to believe that this is the world's financial centre, the New York Stock Exchange, due to open in just a few hours. But many are predicting the reverberations from the collapsed building are yet to hit the financial market and when they do, what's happened here becomes a global financial problem.

(ABC Australia – Reporter Philip Williams)