New York reopening for business

No-one has been pulled out alive for days

Parts of downtown Manhattan have reopened for the first time since Tuesday's devastating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

The area around Wall Street has been opened up to allow firms to prepare for business to resume at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday.

I'm shocked at the size of the devastation - it's hard to describe what it's like

President Bush

The head of the NYSE told reporters it would open at 0930 (1330GMT) on Monday if tests on its systems continued to go well.

Salvage efforts are continuing at the scene of the collapsed towers with workers digging through the wreckage with their bare hands, looking for signs of life and, inevitably, bodies.

A structural engineer at the site, Nancy Hamilton, told the BBC she is still hopeful survivors could be alive beneath the debris.

(Click here to see how the trapped can survive)

New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said on Saturday the total number of missing had risen to 4,972, with 159 people confirmed dead, 92 of whom have been identified.

Bodies

The New York Times reported on Saturday that workers had found the body of an air hostess with her hands bound, and the remains of victims strapped to what appeared to be airplane seats.

Search teams have been asked to mark bodies and move on

Only five people have been rescued alive since the twin towers were destroyed in a two terrorist attacks on Tuesday.

About 1,000 cars are said to remain untouched in parking lots at railway stations in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Police say the city's crime rate has fallen since the attacks, with occurrences of road-rage "non-existent".

Searching for clues

At the scene of the devastation, rescuers with search dogs are continuing to pick their way through the ruins, while human chains pass plastic buckets to and fro along the skyscrapers' remains, filling them up with rubble.

The debris is then transported to nearby Staten Island, where investigators sift through it for evidence.

Human toll

4,717 missing at WTC

124 confirmed dead at WTC

400 body parts recovered from WTC

189 missing or dead at Pentagon, including from hijacked airliner

So far, about 13,000 tons of wreckage has been removed from the site - a fraction of the Trade Center's original 1.25 million ton structure.

Poor weather is hampering the retrieval effort with heavy rain turning lingering ash and dust into piles of mud.

"You're cold, your hands are numb, the steel is slippery," said construction worker Jesus Agosto, helping the search effort.

Fears that other buildings might collapse have diminished after experts examined skyscrapers close to the World Trade Center site and found they were safe.

Businesses reopening

New York Stock Exchange head Richard Grasso said on Saturday that initial tests on its systems were going well.

"Based on today's evaluation of our systems and the interconnectivity of the systems of our broker dealers" the stock exchange and Nasdaq would reopen on Monday morning.

Earlier in the day, subway trains began running into the financial district early on Saturday for the first time since the terrorists struck.

Members of the public were also allowed back into an area south of Canal Street, where many businesses plan to reopen on Monday.

Fears of more collapses are receding

And to help the long recovery process, New York's mayor, Rudolph Giuliani offered the city's Human Resources Administration offices to businesses looking for space.

The premises are equipped with 2,200 workstations and occupy 430,000 square feet (38,700 square metres) of space.

"We want to do everything we can to make certain that people stay in the city of New York," Mr Giuliani told reports.

In Washington, the Department of Defense said 125 of its employees had died or remain missing after the airborne suicide attack on the Pentagon, as well as 64 people on the crashed airliner.

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