Mixing. The attacks on the WTC left more than 2,600 people dead. The debris of the towers mixed with the remains of hundreds of people. In order to have the space needed to retrieve and identify human remains, the debris was taken to a closed landfill on Staten Island immediately after the attack.
What happened to the World Trade Center rubble?
The city trucked the debris from the disaster site, designated Ground Zero, to docks at the southern tip of Manhattan. From there the city used Department of Sanitation barges to transport the debris to the recently closed Fresh Kills Landfill in the borough of Staten Island.
How many people survived the rubble of the World Trade Center?
Their rescue was later portrayed in the Oliver Stone film, World Trade Center. In total, twenty survivors were pulled out of the rubble. The final survivor, Port Authority secretary Genelle Guzman-McMillan, was rescued 27 hours after the collapse of the North Tower.