Wall Street mourns lost colleagues

Friends search in vain for a Cantor Fitzgerald worker

Wall Street is struggling to come to terms with the dreadful losses experienced in Tuesday's terrorist atrocities.

The final death toll is still impossible to calculate, with some saying it could be as high as 5,000.

Some financial institutions based in the 110-storey World Trade Centre have had their operations virtually wiped out.

Trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald, sister company of UK spread betting firm Cantor Index, which occupied four floors of the North Tower, close to the point of the first impact, is missing 700 of its 1,000 workers.

Chief executive Howard Lutnick was only spared because he took his young son to school before going to work.

Coping with grief

In a US television interview, Mr Lutnick, who lost a brother in the attack, broke down as he attempted to describe his feelings.

They have lost their friends...They have lost the person to their left, they have lost the person to their right

Howard Lutnick, chief executive, Cantor Fitzgerald

He said staff could not come to terms with what had happened.

"They have lost their friends.

"They have lost the person to their left, they have lost the person to their right," he said.

He said people wanted to come into work, rather than sit at home or go to funerals, because they had to do something to help them cope with the grief.

Although it did not make sense to carry on, they had to because "we have to make our business able to care for 700 families."

Counselling

The company has set up a crisis centre in a hotel to offer religious and emotional counselling to friends and relatives.

North Tower: employees missing

Cantor Fitzgerald - 700

Marsh and McLennan - 600

Deutsche Bank - 370

Bank of America - 8

More than 300 companies had offices in the World Trade Center, among them some of the biggest names in world finance.

Normally, 50,000 people worked in the twin towers, but estimates suggest about 10,000 were there when the first passenger jet hit at just before 9am on Tuesday.

Insurance broker Marsh and McLennan, which occupied the six floors below Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower, said about 600 of its employees were unaccounted for.

South Tower: employees missing

Morgan Stanley - 40

Fiduciary Trust - 90

Sandler O'Neill - 67

Fiduciary Trust - 90

It said the process of accounting for missing staff was a difficult and painful one.

Bank of America, which occupied three floors lower down, was originally understood to be missing about 400 employees, but says now that all but eight are accounted for.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which had its headquarters in the North Tower, is still missing 200 people.

UK electronic broker Instinet, also based in the North Tower, has accounted for most of its 200 WTC-based employees.

South Tower

The South Tower, which was the second to be hit, 18 minutes after the North Tower, was the first to collapse.

The World Trade Center's biggest tenant, investment bank Morgan Stanley, which occupied more than 1 million square feet across 21 floors in the South Tower, said losses were not as bad as had at first been feared.

Fewer than 40 of its 3,500 employees are missing.

Investment banking firm Sandler O'Neill, which occupied the 104th floor of the South Tower, said 67 of the 90 employees that worked in the building were missing, along with two outside consultants.

Fiduciary Trust, which had offices in the South Tower, said 90 of its employees were missing.

Insurer AON said the "vast majority" of its 1,100 workers, most of whom are believed to have been in the south tower, were reported safe.

France's Credit Agricole Indosuez, which was based on the 92nd floor of the South Tower has accounted for the majority of its 100 staff.

Another South Tower tenant, Fuji Bank said 12 employees were still missing but 113 were safe.

World Financial Centre

Dozens of smaller firms and organisations with a smaller presence in the WTC buildings, such as the New York Stock Exchange, may also have suffered losses.

UK offices services group Regus, which occupied the 93rd floor of the South Tower and other site within the complex, is understood to be missing five employees.

It is also not known how many people died in the nearby World Financial Centre.

American Express managed to safely evacuate its 4,000 employees.

Lehman Brothers, which has its headquarters in the World Financial Centre, also evacuated its staff safely.

Emotional impact

The impact of Tuesday's events on the survivors as they wait in vain for news of family, friends and colleagues is hard to fathom.

One public relations executive for a major firm, which is feared to have lost many employees, said: "During the business day you are looking at all this clinically and then when you go home you lose it."

"You have to switch back and forth between being an automaton and being human, an American."

Wall Street's work force of 180,000, along with the rest of America, planned to spend Friday remembering the victims.