By SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK- There is new hope for the families of hundreds of Sept. 11 victims whose remains were never identified, according to the city medical examiner, who sent letters on Thursday notifying them that “new identifications will be forthcoming.”
Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch wrote to victims’ relatives and said advances made by Bode Technology Group, the Virginia company contracted to work on recovered bone fragments found after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks “have provided us the opportunity to renew our efforts to identify your loved ones.”
Five years after 2,749 people died in the World Trade Center attack, families of about 1,150 victims still have not received word that their loved ones’ remains were found amid the rubble. During the arduous excavation of the 110-story twin towers, which began the evening of the attacks and lasted for nine months, about 20,000 pieces of human remains were found.
The DNA in thousands of those pieces, many small enough to slip into a test tube, was too damaged by heat, humidity and time to yield matches in the many tests forensic scientists have tried over the years. The city told families last year that they had exhausted all available DNA technology and were putting the project on pause until new processes were developed.