NEW YORK (AP) - Human remains from the World Trade Center site have been found by utility workers, a city official said Thursday. Consolidated Edison workers found remains at the downtown Manhattan site, took them to a natural gas vehicle fueling station more than a mile to the north and then called the medical examiner's office to have them identified, office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.``The remains came from down there,'' Borakove said, referring to the trade center site. ``How they got to 29th Street and 11th Avenue, I don't know.'' She said she didn't know when the remains were found. It was unclear what condition the remains were in or how complete they were.
The area was roped off Thursday, and investigators were sifting through dirt under a white tarp.
Five years after 2,749 people died in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks, families of about 1,150 victims still do not know whether their loved ones' remains were recovered.
During the excavation of the 110-story twin towers, which began the evening of the attacks and lasted for nine months, about 20,000 pieces of human remains were found. The DNA in thousands of those pieces, many small enough to slip into a test tube, was too damaged by heat, humidity and time to yield matches in the many tests forensic scientists have tried over the years.