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American Morning

Scaffolding Collapse: Rescue Operation Ends

Aired October 25, 2001 - 09:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back here in the city, workers at the World Trade Center disaster were called away to help with another rescue effort, at the site of a scaffolding collapse, this one just about 1 1/2 miles away.

And our own Jason Carroll is at the site of that collapse.

I know the last time we spoke, Jason, there were a lot of different theories as to what might have gone wrong. Is anybody giving one of the theories more credence than another at this hour?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not yet, Paula. Investigators are still checking into that.

But why don't I set the scene and describe exactly where I am. I'm Standing on the outside of where this accident happened. The accident happened in the building behind me, in an interior courtyard. It's hidden from our view, but what I want to do is show you some tape of what we saw when we came out here yesterday when all of this happened, at about 4:00.

We spoke to a construction worker who said that he was standing on the top of the scaffolding. He said all of a sudden, everything started to shake, and then he said it just went down. Five workers were killed, 14 of them were hurt, many of them with broken bones and internal injuries. Rescue workers rushed to the office building, many of them coming from ground zero to help out.

The rescues had to use their bare hands in some of the situation here to try to reach those who were trapped, because using heavy equipment was simply too risky.

Many of these workers have been pulling a number of hours working down there at the World Trade Center. Yesterday, New York City's mayor Rudy Guiliani came out to offer his support and also to praise the rescue workers for all of their efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RUDY GUILIANI, NEW YORK: If anybody has any questions about their morale, their enthusiasm, their ability to work under the kind of situation that happened back on September 11, all they have to do is watch them doing this work, and it's absolutely remarkable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: It is still unclear why the scaffolding fell. There have been some reports that perhaps it was overloaded. Also, there have been reports that the brick facade of the building that the workers were working on perhaps gave way; in fact, a building inspector had cited the landlord of the building for problems with that brick facade just a few weeks before all of this had happened.

In terms of what's happening with the rescue operation, it is over, and all the workers have been accounted for. At this point, it's just a matter of cleaning up the mess -- Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks, Jason.

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