New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani revealed on Tuesday the public release of tens of thousands of documents indicating that city authorities failed to disclose the full extent of air toxicity following the September 11 attacks.
The disclosure precedes the 25th anniversary of the 2001 attacks, which claimed 2,977 lives in the United States, primarily due to the collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers in New York.
According to a federal medical monitoring program, more than 9,400 individuals have since died from illnesses associated with exposure to the contaminated area.
“These documents reveal what the city knew about the toxic air surrounding Ground Zero, the timing of that knowledge, and the steps taken to limit liability,” Mamdani stated during a news conference following the online publication of 170,000 pages of records concerning health concerns, air quality, and the city’s response to the attacks.
“For 25 years, four successive mayoral administrations withheld from the public, the U.S. Congress, and the City Council documents detailing the city’s actual knowledge of toxic chemical dangers in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse, even as officials repeatedly assured the public that the air was ‘safe and acceptable,’” said Benjamin Chevat, director of 9/11 Health Watch, in a statement.
