Ground Zero debris to be sifted for 9/11 victims' remains

New York City will on Monday begin the mammoth task of sifting through the debris of buildings on the World Trade Center site to find more remains of the 9/11 terrorist attack victims that will allow more number of them to be identified.

According to an NBC report, the city has collected about 60 dump truck loads of debris from construction areas around the World Trade Center site, known as 'Ground Zero', over the past two and a half years that will be sifted for fragments of 9/11 victims' remains, New York City officials said Friday.

The debris will be combed for about 10 weeks starting today at a mobile sifting unit, the report said.

Of the 2,750 people killed in the September 11, 2001 attack, 1,634 have had their remains identified. Any human remains will be analysed by the medical examiner's office for possible matches to 9/11 victims, it said.

"We will continue DNA testing until all recovered remains that can be matched with a victim are identified," Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway wrote Friday in a memo to Mayor Bloomberg.

The city expanded its search for remains of trade center victims in 2006, when several bones were found in a manhole.

More than 1,800 pieces of potential human remains have been found.

The office has made 34 new identifications since 2006, and hundreds of fragments of remains have been matched to people who were already identified, the report said.