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First Person Singluar

When Steel Turned Into Spaghetti !

Aroon Sharma
Sep 2011

Of course, it is a coincidence of two Septembers: 30 years to the month, I bought a book 'The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism' by Claire Sterling, Reader's Digest Press. And 10 years to the month, the Twin Towers in New York fell to terrorism, in a never thought before mix of a hijack and coordinated hits -- 21 minutes apart, which has since tore apart the citizenry of the cosmos.

In September 1981, I was stupefied to read the most senseless logic I ever have. A member of the then gun toting Red Brigade of Italy ( Brigate Rosse--BR ) told a journalist of the Roman weekly 'Panorama': “You think it is absurd that I should go out and shoot a man just I'm ordered to ? That's your bourgeois mentality. Don't you think it's absurd that you're ordered to go out and write an article ?”

Twenty years later in September 2001, two out of four set of pilots, motivated by their masters, took charge of four airliners mid-air; swerved them, took two in direct line of the twin landmarks of New York, and slammed through. The towers– World Trade Centre 1 and 2, both with 110 floors, each 45,000-50,000 sq. ft., 200 ft wide on each side, accessed by 103 elevators besides a staircase, were wiped off the map.

September is again upon us. The 10 year old 9/11 stays in the psyche of Americans as a slaughter of its lead super power status. Around the world, it symbolizes spinal shivers, a recurrent audio-visual fright, as and when one re-visits that 9/11. Since that Satanic catastrophe, I have been bewildered what made the solidified structures, with a 65 feet deep foundation, slump floor upon floor and not on each other ?

In the decade gone by, I feel a bit enlightened. Both the Towers had a novelty thought of by its Japanese architect, Minuro Yamasaki. A tubular steel core went from the shop to the top level and with spaces left wide open around it to equalise structural load. Vertically, along the outer façade, the Towers were further fortified by 18” thick steel tubes. The Towers when functional, in 1970-72, were quakeproof.

Say, the weight of uppermost 110th floor evened out upon the 109th floor. And floor by floor till the 1st. Supra fortification were the 244 steel girders perimeter-ed in each of 110 floors. Each floor thus weighed millions of pounds – it was never calculated, either when they were vacant or when they were occupied with men and material. There was and is no instrumentation for the mega exercise prone to margins of error.

For, an average floor of a skyscraper, after its built, is laden with wooden cum metallic doors and windows, balconies and railings, ceiling fans and air-conditioners ( and its vents ), customized partitions and glass panes, electric fixtures, furniture and furnishings to order, besides men and women on job inside, and more that number a steady stream of incoming, outgoing and stay-on visitors on errands of odds and ends.

Still how did the 110 floors each, in two towers, lumped straight down, akin to sunken, powdered pancakes, though debris did fly sideways and damaged the remaining 5 smaller adjuncts of the complex ? Believe it or not, it was the heat generated by gasoline ( ATF-- Aviation Turbine Fuel ). The two flights, which slammed the two towers were both Boeing 767s, with their tanks plumped with US 24,000 gallons full.

Within seconds of the 'slam', the tanks burst, the fuel turned into a fireball of heat, prone to a multiplier effect till 1,000 F when steel, howsoever refined, cannot take more, starts bending, then melting, and finally the girders crack apiece, softening into flickering Red lumps. The tensility is lost. The continuity of strength slumps. Soon after, retired ATF investigator Ronald Baughn said: “All that turns steel into spaghetti…..

“…. And all of a sudden structure is untenable, and the weight starts bearing down on floors that were not designed to hold that weight, and you start having collapse…….It didn't topple. It came straight down. All floors pan caking down, and there are people on those floors.” Rest is my imagination: each floor dropped onto the one below, the weight became greater and greater, then choking gasps for breath, then death.

Karen Kriegal saw the dance of death. She handwrote and photo-copied placards 'Give Blood Now'. About 100 followed her. Outside New York Blood Centre, blood group 'O' donors, universal donors, were Q-ed up separately with a Yellow movie ticket as ID. The Q swelled to 1,000s. The wait was three to four hours. Hospital Bellevue had no plastic bags left. Donors went back; returned the next day. The Q had swelled.

As many as 2,752 needed no blood. No blood could reach them; nobody could reach the rubble. Sieved it was, but for remains. In 1945, two planes atom-bombed two cities to stone age. A War ended. Fifty six years later, two planes, of the four, were turned into bombs mid-air; hurtled towards to slam-slice the two towers. And a 'War' began. It has been raging for 10 years now. An end is not in sight ! Nor in foresight ! Blood curdles !

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