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Kiwi expat Melissa Jenner shared in an outpouring of grief today over the September 11 attacks. - Source: ONE News -
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Kiwi expat Melissa Jenner shared in an outpouring of grief today over the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11 attacks.
Ten years ago on a clear blue morning Jenner was running late for work, a fact that almost certainly saved her life.
Her office was on the 105th floor of the North Tower in the World Trade Center and 750 of her colleagues perished in the series of attacks targeting New York and Washington.
"I was in the lobby when the plane hit my building, the first building, and that's when panic and fear took over people," Jenner said.
She watched from the ground as the building she had worked in burst into flames.
Jenner ran 20 blocks to phone her family in New Zealand to let them know she had not been hurt.
She now lives in London, but said she still flinches when a fire alarm goes off or a plane flies low overhead.
"It's just made me want to live as best I can, the best life I can," she said.
Jenner went back to New York for the anniversary to remember the friends and colleagues she lost that day.
At the site where the World Trade Center twin towers stood, the name of every person killed in al Qaeda's hijacked plane attacks was read today in a heart-wrenching ceremony which lasted nearly five hours.
The attacks led US forces to invade Afghanistan to topple the Taliban rulers who had harboured al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Washington began a "war on terror" that ousted Iraq's Saddam Hussein and persists on several fronts to this day.
"Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at New York's Ground Zero.
"Since then, we've lived in sunshine and in shadow, and although we can never unsee what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born and good works and public service have taken root to honour those we loved and lost."
Thousands gathered at the site on a clear morning to grieve. With security tight and no traffic, there was an eerie silence where the 110-storey skyscrapers collapsed a decade ago, sending a noxious cloud over lower Manhattan.
President Barack Obama, who visited all three attack sites, read from Psalm 46 in New York: "God is our refuge and strength."
New Zealand offers support
New Zealand was one of the first countries to offer support following the September 11 attacks and joined the war in Afghanistan, which was backed by the United Nations.
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark said: "New Zealand will be counted into an international campaign against terrorism".
New Zealand's elite SAS soldiers and a reconstruction team are still in Afghanistan today.
Professor Robert Patman from the University of Otago said 9/11 provided an opportunity for New Zealand to extend its co-operation with the US and also US-allied organisations such as Nato.
He said at the same time New Zealand did not surrender its capacity for making independent decisions on international issues.
Aviation security was tightened up across the country in response to the attacks.
Massey University lecturer Dr Jim Veitch, who specialises in the study of religious and political conflict, said 9/11 was the biggest shake up call security wise that New Zealand has ever experienced.
Veitch said Kiwis are much more conscious of the necessity to protect themselves.
Green Party MP Keith Locke said "the security service trebled its budget, employed all these extra people and then couldn't' find a terrorist, and so they've engaged in what you'd call a 'make-work scheme' of chasing after animal welfare activists and Tuhoi activists".
He said today Kiwis are still fighting in a civil war even though it would be hard to find a single al Qaeda member in Afghanistan.
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