The Guyana Consulate is finding the job of ascertaining the well-being of the Guyanese who worked at the World Trade Center (WTC) and in the vicinity of its complex, painstaking.
Consul General, Brentnol Evans, told Stabroek News yesterday from New York that very few of the families of persons missing as a result of the terrorist attack on the WTC were coming forward.
He said that they were unwilling to face the fact that they could be dead, hoping that they could still be rescued from the sub-basements of the complex where they were probably buried.
However, Evans said that he had enlisted the help of Guyanese organisations to find out about the Guyanese nationals missing in the disaster. He said too that he and other consul generals from the Caribbean would be collaborating in trying to get information about CARICOM nationals who were missing and feared dead.
Up to yesterday there was no word on the fate of Anett Dataram, formerly of 265 Patentia Housing Scheme and former national cricketer Nizam Hafiz who both worked in the WTC and have not been heard from since Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Guyanese nationals who escaped or witnessed Tuesday's apocalyptic events continued to share their experiences with Stabroek News.
Gabriel Lall, a frequent contributor to Stabroek News' letter page said that he witnessed the attack from his office, which is on the twenty-fifth floor of a building near the WTC. He was engulfed in the avalanche of thick, suffocating black smoke which spewed from the collapsing north tower.
Lall had to walk through the mezzanine floor of the then existing WTC complex to get to his office across the street. He did so on Tuesday at 7:05 am and everything went according to routine until 8:48 am when he heard the first explosion and a series of events unfolded that he said "has left memories for a lifetime."
This is his up close and personal account from Ground Zero.
"The first explosion sounded like a heavy duty collision. From my vantage point 25 floors up, I could see the smoke billowing out of the top of the WTC. There were very few flames, but lots of tiny bits of paper, the contents of file folders, floating against the serene blue sky.
"Around 9:20 the second explosion rocked my building, and the orders came to hit the exits. For the first time, the truth dawned: this was no accident but terrorist attacks. The question was - how many more were coming?
"A furious, but orderly, march down 25 sets of stairs followed. A fellow Guyanese, Jimmy Durante, formerly of the Guyana Police Force, spotted me from the crowd and we agreed to put as much space between the scene and us. Six blocks later, top management made a fateful decision to retrace our steps towards the haven of a park, because of fears of wind blowing gases heading in our direction. I do not know why I followed (as I had my own ideas) but I did.
"On the way back, when aligned with the burning buildings I heard this almighty crack of thunder, and saw the building disintegrate into itself almost in slow motion. At this point, there is nothing between the collapsing building and us. The only thought is that there is no way that a building that high will not tip over and crush all in its path, in all directions. That includes me. There is no way to run, and we are running. There is an avalanche-size cloud of thick, black smoke that is swooping down to engulf us. I am awed and mesmerized. I am dead. It's over.
"As the billowing smoke smothers me, I find myself thinking that there has to be lethal shrapnel in its folds seeking objects in its path. Like me. But I am powerless. For three to five minutes, I try to stay calm, breathe slowly, conserve oxygen. The blackness gives way to a thick gray pallor, then a feeble visibility of several feet. There are no sounds, no voices. There is only the quietness that is so surreal that I feel as though I am on the moon.
"I concentrate on the words of the psalmist, '...even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me.'
"I get down on my hands and knees and crawl towards what I do not know. Then I heard a lone voice cry out for help. I heard a response to 'walk straight forward, keep walking.' I edge closer and soon a fireman grips me by the shoulder and I rejoin the living".
Dr Cheddi Jagan (jnr) is another Guyanese who witnessed Tuesday's events but from afar. He wrote Stabroek News to share his experience.
Dr Jagan said that he had boarded a plane at La Guardia Airport due to leave at 9:40 am when he saw smoke coming from the attack on the north tower. He said that when the airport was evacuated at about 10:30 am, he could see the smoke billowing from the buildings.
Dr Jagan said that the pictures on the television "do not match the horror of seeing it alive, albeit we were miles away."
He said that as a Guyanese-American, "the carnage, destruction and death which this terrorist attack has caused, has instilled in me a profound hatred for the people who committed this vile deed and for those who harbour and nourish them." He said that he has "quite a few Guyanese friends who lost their lives in this terrible nightmare and the innocence of going to work to support your family and then having to die like this is to be transplanted by the satisfaction that war has been declared - a war against criminal terrorists...."