11 images that bring back the horror of 9/11 attacks
These 11 photos document the enormity, chaos and emotion of 9/11 on every scale, from panoramic views of smoke rising over New York’s skyline to a close-up of the anxious, smudged face of a woman hastening down a street blanketed with ashen dust.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, exactly two decades ago, al-Qaeda terrorists used commercial planes as missiles and crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
It was a day which is impossible to forget. Nearly 3,000 people were killed and countless more injured in the terror attack that forever transformed the United States. An estimated 33,000 or more people successfully evacuated the stricken buildings.
TAKE A LOOK AT PICTURES THAT DOCUMENT THE ENORMITY OF 9/11 ATTACKS:
Street scenes chart escalating horror as people stare and weep at the burning skyscrapers, then run from the dust cloud billowing through lower Manhattan after one of them crumbles. Flames shoot from the windows of the Pentagon, a global symbol of military might that proved vulnerable to an attack by a handful of Islamic militants.
September 11 survivors bear scars and the weight of unanswerable questions. Some grapple with their place in a tragedy defined by an enormous loss of life. They get told to “get over” 9/11. But they also say they have gained resilience, purpose, appreciation and resolve.
A person falls from the north tower of New York's World Trade Center Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001, after terrorists crashed two hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and brought down the twin 110-story towers. (AP)
Rescue workers carry fatally injured New York City Fire Department Chaplain, Fether Mychal Judge, from one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, early September 11, 2001. (REUTERS)
People look out of the burning North tower of the World Trade Center in New York City September 11, 2001. Both towers were hit by planes crashing into the buildings.
Shortly after this photo was taken, this tower fell. In the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, three hijacked planes slammed into the Pentagon and New York's landmark World Trade Center on Tuesday, demolishing the two 110-story towers that symbolise US financial might. (REUTERS)
The remaining tower of New York's World Trade Center, Tower 2, dissolves in a cloud of dust and debris about half an hour after the first twin tower collapsed on September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden and his organisation, al-Qaeda, were held responsible for the attacks, that preceeded the US-led war in Afghanistan. (REUTERS)
A rescue helicopter surveys damage to the Pentagon as firefighters battle flames after a hijacked airplane crashed into the US military headquarters outside of Washington, in this September 11, 2001 file photo. (REUTERS)
Police stand near a wanted poster of Osama bin Laden, printed by a New York newspaper, in New York in this September 18, 2001. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight with US forces in Pakistan on May 1, 2011, ending a nearly 10-year worldwide hunt for the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
"Justice has been done," the then US President Barack Obama declared in a hastily called, late-night White House speech announcing the death of the elusive head of the militant Islamic group behind a series of deadly bombings across the world. (REUTERS)
The damaged area of the Pentagon building, where a hijacked commercial jetliner slammed into it on September 11, 2001, is seen in this file photo with the US Capitol Building in the background, at sunrise on September 16, 2001. (REUTERS)
A group of firefighters walk near the remains of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. Two hijacked US commercial planes slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center early on Tuesday, causing both 110-story landmarks to collapse in thunderous clouds of fire and smoke. (REUTERS)
People watch as the second of two World Trade Center towers collapses after planes crashed into the buildings, in New York on September 11, 2001. (REUTERS)
Pedestrians react to the World Trade Center collapse September 11, 2001. Two commercial airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center earlier. (REUTERS)
An aerial view of the World Trade Center disaster site seen on September 18, 2001. The attacks in New York and Washington left nearly 3,000 people dead and over 300 police and firefighters are believed to be lost in the attack. (REUTERS)