The saddest call

CHINESE-BORN Fanny Guan sits at home in New York watching news updates about last week's terrorist attacks on the United States. But in her mind's eye, she does not see the awful destruction, only the lovely face of her newly wed younger sister, Cindy.

At last contact, shortly after the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Centre's north tower at 8:48am on September 11, Cindy was stuck in a lift on the 12th floor of the south tower. Fanny's husband put a call through to her mobile phone when he heard about the first attack. She had been unaware of what was going on in the neighbouring tower.

He got through again about 10 minutes later. Cindy, 25, was still trapped in the elevator she had boarded on her way to the 86th floor, where she worked as an auditor for the municipal tax authorities.

'The line went dead when the second tower was hit,' Fanny said. 'We called 911 [the emergency hotline], but the number was jammed.'

Hope of finding more survivors under the millions of tonnes of rubble is fading, but rescue workers keep at their grim task, praying that somewhere in the wreckage someone has been able to survive almost two weeks without food or water.

Meanwhile, families around the world wait anxiously for news of missing loved ones. More than 6,000 victims from at least 60 countries are listed as missing and feared dead following the attack on the World Trade Centre.

They include 16 people from Hong Kong, three from the mainland and nine from Taiwan. The SAR Government's Immigration Department said the Hong Kong missing were nine men and seven women aged between 10 and 80, including a 10-year-old girl.