By Megan Power and Ilda Jacobs
At least 32 South African families anxiously await news of loved ones not yet accounted for after the terrorist attacks in the United States. Up to eight could possibly be among the dead, having been inside or in the vicinity of the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon or aboard the four aircraft which crashed.
Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said calls to the department's task team had revealed that 16 more people in the areas surrounding the attack sites were missing.
In other parts of the US, another eight were unaccounted for. He declined to name them. "This list is by no means comprehensive, as our missions in Washington and New York are still in the process of registering South Africans who are currently in the States," said Mamoepa.
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'It's worse to hold out hope' Two South Africans known to be missing are Craig Gibson and Nicholas Rowe, both of Gauteng.
Dannielle Gibson has had no news of her 37-year-old husband since he left for his job on the 94th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre at 8.15am on Tuesday. But Mrs Gibson, an Australian, is refusing to give up hope. Gibson is a reinsurer at the Marsh and McClennan Company whose chairman, Jeff Greenberg, said 1 300 of the firm's 1 700 employees who worked at the World Trade Centre had survived.
But the other known South African victim, computer programmer Nicholas Rowe, didn't stand a chance.
The 29-year-old former Johannesburg man was on the 106th floor of the North Tower when the Boeing 767 crashed into the building just three floors below. About two hours later, the building collapsed. Not a single person is known to have made it off Rowe's floor.
Where he was in the building and the fact that his name is on no hospital list has led his devastated Johannesburg family to declare him dead. "It's worse to hold out hope. You just torture yourself that way," said his sister, Rachel Logan.
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