Eyewitness accounts from inside the WTC towers on 9/11 posted online

On the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre towers, eyewitness accounts from both, people who were in the building and in New York on the fateful day, have poured in online. On Quora, a site where questions are posed to the public and users post stories or opinions, the question ‘What did it feel like to be inside the World Trade Centre at the time of the 9/11 attacks?’ has curated a dozen long, detailed accounts from people who were present in the building. [caption id=“attachment_1104195” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The 9/11 attacks on the WTC towers. AP image[/caption] Jonathan Weinberg was working on the 77th floor of the second tower on that day. He remembers a giant crashing noise, and looking out of his window to see a gaping hole on the south side of the building. He writes: “It’s hard to express what I felt at that point, because I can only describe it as shock.  Your mind cannot really comprehend what is happening–almost an overload state.  You see it with your eyes, but you are somehow mentally detached from it at the same time.” He also remembers how he narrowly escaped being a casualty himself. “Apparently the conference room that I had been standing in just a few minutes before was now obliterated.  Had I decided to stay up on 78 instead of returning to my office when I did, I would not be alive today.” Another user, Ashton Lee, remembers how he felt the jolt, and then saw a piece of metal flying past his window. Grace Shroeder talks about another fear that Lee touches on, that the building might topple and hit more people. “I  turned to run before I saw the resulting plume — thinking that one or both of the buildings was going to kill me before I made it a block. I almost fainted at the thought of life ending as I ran down cobblestone streets in three inch heels with a paper mache suit. I ran until I believed that I was out of reach of a 100 story tower tipping over on my head,” says Shroeder. Besides these accounts, Mashable website has also curated the posts from one Reddit user who has been posting the same account of his experiences while on his way to office, which was about half a mile away from the World Trade Centre. He writes:

We saw people leaping from the windows and it was surreal to see how long it took them to fall. I remember thinking how horrible it must be up there if the better choice is to jump to your death. I’m not sure how long I had stood there, but I was just thinking to myself, “How the f*ck are they going to put these fires out, they’re so high up and so huge?” when I heard the most almighty sound I’ve ever heard. It was a shrieking, tearing type of groan. Almost like God had grabbed a handful of steel H beams and ripped them in two.