New York City Terrorism – February 1993

In 26 February 1993 at morning, powerful bomb exploded in the parking area beneath the World Trade Center towers. This was the first and failed attempt by terrorists to take down the twin towers, a bomb went off beneath one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

It was so powerful that a steel reinforced concrete floor collapsed, tons of debris came down, a fire was started, and power for the entire complex was cut off. Fifty thousand people were soon without lights, heat, or elevators, and smoke was rising into the towers.

The World Trade Center consisted of twin towers with 110 floors in each, located on a sixteen-acre site near the southern tip of Manhattan Island. They rose to more than 1,350 feet above street level and in 1970, when they were first occupied, they were the world’s tallest buildings. The explosion occurred in an underground garage, powerful enough to rock the towers and demolish the steel-and-concrete ceiling of the underground train station, a major transportation point for New Jersey commuters. A huge hole was ripped in the station wall and an even bigger cavity was created beneath. Hundreds of people poured out of the towers into the streets, their faces black with soot, some of them having managed to find their way down from as high as the hundredth floor.

Approximately 26,000 people were evacuated from each tower. Most of the victims were stuck on the upper floors and the large amount of time needed to rescue them. Search and rescue work completed before midnight on the same day. The bomb weight more than a thousand pounds and did comprehensive damage on seven floors, six of them below street level.