Politics takes back seat at Sept 11 commemoration

Although it has been 23 years, the commemoration of Sept 11 remains uniquely somber, even in election years.

The morning after their heated presidential debate in Philadelphia, US Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, and former president Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, stood in the same row in a Manhattan ceremony on Wednesday along with President Joe Biden. They listened to the annual reading of the names of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Biden and Trump shook hands, as did the vice-president and Trump, whose running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, was also there. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg stood in the middle of the politicians.

In describing the scene, The New York Times wrote it is "a mark of the singular nature of Sept 11 as a traumatic national touchstone that the combatants in today's scathing political wars would feel compelled to share a tent even for an hour".

"Both sides knew that whoever did not show would pay a political price, so they swallowed any reservations and made the appearance."

There were no formal remarks at the Ground Zero site, where on Sept 11, 2001, al-Qaida hijackers intentionally crashed two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, both of which eventually collapsed.

Hijackers also crashed another jet into the Pentagon, while a fourth plane went down in a Pennsylvania field after passengers heroically stormed the cockpit and confronted the hijackers. The attacks at the three sites claimed nearly 3,000 lives.

In New York, which took the brunt of the 9/11 toll, family members, including wives, husbands, sisters, brothers and now, more than two decades later, an increasing number of grandchildren, read out the names of the deceased.

As the years passed, scores of people who were at Ground Zero and lucky enough to survive that fateful day ended up succumbing to cancers and other diseases because of the toxic burning at the site. Many of them were volunteers who helped clear "the pile" of debris.

More than 45,000 people are living with physical ailments resulting from that day, the New York Post reported.

At least 45,200 civilians and officers from the Fire Department of New York, the New York Police Department, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have at least one cancer or disease that has been directly linked to 9/11.

The Fire Department lost 343 members on 9/11, many of whom headed into the building while others were fleeing. Now, it says more firefighters have died from illnesses stemming from the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero.

Agencies contributed to this story.