China Daily staff working in WTC tells experience on day of terror
( 2001-09-12 18:55 ) (1 )

China Daily staff working in WTC: It's a day of Terror``I felt as if the whole building was shaking,'' she recalled of her ordeal and evacuation during a long-distance interview. ``Then a second sound of explosion followed.''

She ran into the corridor and saw no commotion. She immediately returned to her office. Picking up her ID and handbag, she ran out of the office into the corridor again. This time, the hallway was filled with heavy smoke and everybody was running around.

``But nobody knew what was happening,'' she said.

At this moment, Sun got a phone call from her husband, Zhang Kening, who works in Jamaica, caught the CNN headline news, which covered the air strike almost at the same time. ``He told me to calm down, and evacuate from the building immediately,'' she said.

She followed the throng down the stairway. ``Everybody seemed to be calm and try to help each other,'' she said.

When they reached the 30th floor, the throng grew larger. At that moment, stretchers carrying people wounded during the attack started to file down. The files narrowed to make way for the wounded on the stretchers and for the visually-impaired personnel who worked in the building and who were evacuating with the help of guidance dogs.

``I saw the wounded, skin peeled off from their bodies which were covered with blood,'' she said. ``All the hair of a woman victim burned and covered her face.''

When they arrived at the 20-some floor, they met firefighters who were rushing up the stairways, caryying heavy equipment on their back. ``They asked at which floor there was the fire,'' Sun said. ``All of us had deepest respect for the firefighters, the bravest people.''

They offered the firefiighters drinks and threw water onto them.

More wounded people were being carried down .

When she reached the lobby, she discovered that all the eight elevators had crashed. ``I don't know how many people were trapped in there,'' she said.

In the lobby, quite a few pieces of granite fell off from the wall, from the ceiling. Everyone of them were covered with mud and water.

At the single exit, she met a guard who had been greeting her or sending her off everyday for eight years. ``He kept saying: Don't run, but be hurry.''

She just stepped out of the exit when she heard a large plop. Somebody had jumped from the building!

Sun said she kept walking, although by that time, she had already lost one shoe. She turned back to look after clearing one block and saw the No 2 building of the twin tower of the World Trade Center collapsing. ``It was as if a huge piece of chocolate melting down,'' she said. ``How fragile we human beings are!''

She kept walking, walking, and went on the Brooklyn Bridge. She turned back again and found that the huge skyscraper where she has worked for eight years disappear from the horizon and turn to ashes.

``I thought of the brave firefighters, who were rushing upstairs;

``I thought of friends at Morgan Stanley, whom we often met during our exercises in a gym nearby;

``I knew it was almost impossible for them to survive.''

After 7 hours of trekking, she finally reached home. The light on her answer machine was blinking. ``More than 70 voice mails were waiting for me,'' she said.

The phone calls, with the first coming from Zhang Ping, the general manager of www. Chinadaily.com.cn, have come from China, from Australia, from inside the United States, from the Chinese Consulate and Chinese language newspaper in New York.

``They were offering any help that I may want,'' she said. ``It was something that I should take comfort in.''