More human body parts were found at the World Trade Center site yesterday as workers examined several manholes, officials said.
This latest discovery came during a new search for more remains of 9/11 victims that began after Con Ed workers unknowingly unearthed dozens of bones at Ground Zero on Thursday.
Yesterday, the searchers removed debris from the manholes by hand after excavation teams had torn into the pavement on a service road along the site’s western border.
The debris was then sifted on site by forensic experts, Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler said.
Found were 15 pieces of human remains – bringing the total to 96 for the week, officials said.
The city was initially only going to search through six manholes and subterranean pockets, but that was expanded to 10 after blueprints revealed the existence of more cavities than previously expected.
The search will go on through next week, Skyler said.
The newfound bones and fragments have ranged in size from a “little under an inch to over 12 inches [and in body parts from] the extremities – arms, legs, feet, hands – to ribs, cranial bones and vertebrae,” said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city’s medical examiner.
She added that forensic testing would begin this week in an attempt to determine exactly how many victims the remains belonged to.
“We’re going to extract DNA, the same as we’ve been doing with all of the remains from the beginning, and we’re going to try our best to identify as many, if not all, of the remains as we can,” Borakove said.
More than 40 percent of the 2,749 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City remain unidentified to this day.
Officials said some victims’ relatives were already calling for the federal government to lead a new search for any further remains in and around Ground Zero.
An earlier search ended in 2002 – after a cleanup of 1.5 million tons of debris.
The southwest corner of Ground Zero remained a crime scene yesterday, as cops and construction workers identified manholes and underground cable boxes for re-inspection by hand.
On Wednesday, an eagle-eyed hardhat removing debris from around a Con Ed cable box noticed two 8-to-10-inch bones amid a pile that he was about to heap onto a truck.
Those remains were later identified as an arm and a leg bone.
More bones, a wallet and other personal effects were found when workers further examined debris taken to a Con Ed operating station on West 29th Street.
With Georgett Robertsand Post Wire Services