Mamdani releases undisclosed 9/11 files

Mayor says New Yorkers were 'lied' to about toxic air

NEW YORK:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Tuesday the release of tens of thousands of documents showing that the city did not disclose everything it knew about air toxicity after 9/11.

The release comes ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed 2,977 people in the United States, mostly from the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York.

More than 9,400 have died from illnesses linked to their exposure to the area in the years since, according to a federal medical monitoring program.

Thousands of people have suffered health problems, including cancer, as a result of the terrorist attacks, with many dying after inhaling hazardous contaminants released by the collapse of the buildings, according to the BBC.

"These are documents that show what the city knew about the toxic air around Ground Zero, when they knew it, and how they acted to limit liability," the mayor told a news conference following the online release of 170,000 pages of documents on health concerns, air quality and the city's response to the attacks.

The release is part of an agreement with 9/11 Health Watch, a victims' advocacy group that had sued the city to obtain the documents.

The BBC reported that city officials found 68 boxes of the documents last year. Officials had previously said they did not have them.

"For 25 years, four different Mayoral administrations kept from the public, the US Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the city actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse, even as city officials continued messaging to the public that the air was 'safe and acceptable'," the group's director Benjamin Chevat said in a statement.