Teams Struggle to Find Victims in Damaged Pentagon

Photos Reuters Photo Slideshows AP Photo Coordinated Terrorist Attack

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's massive Pentagon (news - web sites) headquarters, ripped by a terrorist strike, reopened for limited business on Wednesday as rescue teams pressed a perilous search for hundreds of missing defense workers.

Smoke from the blackened concrete structure drifted over Washington and a stubborn roof fire continued to burn more than 24 hours after a hijacked fuel-laden airliner slammed into a corner of the five-sided building on Tuesday morning.

Firefighting officials said the dead and injured could total anywhere from 100 to 800 persons, including 64 aboard the aircraft. But Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke cautioned that the ``ballpark'' 800 estimate could be far too high.

``I have no confidence in the 800 figure,'' she told reporters. ``The priority today is to take care of the injured, to take care of the dead, and to take care of their families.''

The Defense Department said in a statement that the area where the aircraft struck and burned sustained such catastrophic damage that ``anyone who might have survived the initial impact and collapse could not have survived the fire that followed.''

But four special ``Urban Search and Rescue Teams'' of about 60 members each began moving into parts of the damaged area on Wednesday's afternoon to shore up unstable wreckage and allow for a thorough search for possible survivors.

'BLACK BOX' STILL MISSING

The hijacked American Airlines' jetliner's ``black box'' instrument package, containing data on its flight path from nearby Dulles International Airport on what was to be a flight to Los Angeles, was still buried in the unstable rubble.

``It's like a game of pick-up sticks,'' Chief Mike Tamillow of the First Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department told Reuters. ``If you pull out the wrong one they could all come crashing down. That's exctly what we're were trying to prevent.''

The Pentagon, the world's largest government building across the Potomac River in Virginia, was evacuated after Tuesday morning's devastating strike, but several thousand of the 23,000 military and civilian workers who normally work at the Pentagon returned to the job on Wednesday.

Shortly before noon, with concern growing that the fire might spread further in the wooden structure under the slate roof, many people began to leave the building on what Pentagon officials called a ``false alarm'' that an order had been given to evacuate. Those who had left quickly returned.

 

Photos Reuters Photo

Rescue workers ran briefly from the damaged area outside at about the same time when an unidentified aircraft was reported to be approaching Washington. But that, too, was a false alarm

Tuesday's attack coincided with other hijackings that toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, where thousands are believed to have perished.

MILES OF CORRIDORS CLOSED

Nearly half of the 17 miles of Pentagon corridors remained shut for safety reasons, however, and officials said many of the 23,000 military and civilians who work there daily would not report on Wednesday because of damage to a large wedge of the building.

``The Pentagon is up and functioning,'' Clarke told a news conference. But other officials said that a major portion of the building was shut down for safety.

Arlington County, Virginia, Fire Chief Edward Plaugher, coordinating the firefighting operation, told reporters that it would take ``many, many days'' to search for possible survivors and recover the bodies of the dead.

Officials said it was important to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the military of the world's only superpower was seen unbowed by the terrorist strike.

One section of the five-story building, built during World War Two and never attacked during the decades of the Cold War, collapsed and burned.

A portable morgue and field hospital were set up on a highway next to the building.

Rescuers probed as far as they could but ``obviously in the collapsed areas, that will have to take place at a later time, after we have made the building safe,'' Plaugher said.

The plane used in the attack was an American Airlines Boeing 757 that took off from Washington's Dulles Airport bound for Los Angeles before it was diverted. It carried 58 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots.

U.S. forces worldwide were put on the highest alert -- force protection condition Delta -- meaning extra guards, restrictions on personnel movement and other precautions. H

Earlier Stories
Pentagon Reopens, Death Toll Uncertain (September 12)
Fire-Blackened Pentagon Reopens for Business (September 12)
Hijacked U.S. Plane Kills 100 to 800 at Pentagon (September 12)

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