The September 11, 2001 attacks, which marked their 25th anniversary, left deep scars in the United States, with 2,606 people killed in New York alone in the attacks on the World Trade Center. The Folha de S.Paulo's Editor-in-Chief, Sérgio Dávila, was the newspaper's correspondent in the city and published the following day a vivid description of the horror scenario he witnessed.
The journalist managed to pass through police barricades protected by a mask offered by a firefighter and reached a few steps from the remaining structures of the two towers. He described the air as a mixture of white powder with black smoke, with a sweet smell of burning that turned your stomach, and explained that at noon, under the brilliant sun, it was dark as night beside the site.
The narrative details the absolute chaos, with firefighters, nurses, volunteers, medical students and FBI agents trying to organize a rescue with no apparent success. The first rescue team was buried under the first collapse, part of the second was trapped under the rubble of the second, and the third was composed of off-duty firefighters and professionals without field experience. The correspondent described stretchers being removed with crushed bodies, mostly police officers and firefighters, covered in white powder and blood.
Sérgio Dávila recounted that he was about 15 blocks from the site when he saw the towers collapse in clouds of dust, first without noise and then with a dull noise followed by screams and silence. He described a war scenario, with buildings within a three-block radius shaken and some still at risk of collapse. The journalist was subsequently expelled from the site by authorities.
