NEW YORK – Americans commemorated 9/11 with solemn remembrances and vows to “never forget” 18 years after the deadliest terror attacks on American soil.
A crowd of victims’ relatives assembled at Ground Zero, where the observance began on Wednesday (Sept 11) with a moment of silence and tolling bells at 8.46am – the moment when a hijacked plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s north tower.
“As long as the city will gift us this moment, I will be here,” Ms Margie Miller said at the ground zero ceremony, which she attends every year. She lost her husband, Joel.
“Because I feel like if we don’t come, they don’t need to do it. And I want people to remember,” said Ms Miller, of Baldwin, on Long Island.
After so many years of anniversaries, she has come to know other victims’ relatives, and to appreciate being with them.
“There’s smiles in between the tears that say we didn’t do this journey on our own. That we were here for each other. And that’s the peace that I think we get from being here,” she said.
President Donald Trump is expected to join an observance at the Pentagon. Vice-President Mike Pence was scheduled to speak at the third attack site, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Former president George W. Bush, the commander-in-chief at the time of the 2001 attacks, is due at an afternoon wreath-laying at the Pentagon.
The nation is still grappling with the aftermath of 9/11 at ground zero, in Congress and beyond.
The attacks’ aftermath is visible from airport security checkpoints to Afghanistan.
A rocket exploded at the US embassy as the anniversary began in Afghanistan, where a post-9/11 invasion has become America’s longest war.
The anniversary ceremonies centre on remembering the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes rammed into the trade centre, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville on Sept 11, 2001.
All those victims’ names are read aloud at the ground zero ceremony.
But there has been growing awareness in recent years of the suffering of another group of people tied to the tragedy: firefighters, police and others who died or fell ill after exposure to the wreckage and the toxins unleashed in it.
