America grieved the victims of September 11 yesterday as the brothers and sisters of the dead recited their loved ones' names and tearful messages of remembrance to a weeping crowd gathered at the site where the World Trade Center once stood.

　　The roll of the lost began with Gordon M. Aamoth Jr, an investment bank employee. Then, one after another, the names echoed across the site where the twin towers collapsed four years ago in a nightmarish cloud of dust and debris.

　　Relatives in the crowd bowed their heads and sobbed as speakers uttered brief, personal messages to the brothers and sisters they lost.

　　"You're still our hero," Elizabeth Ahearn said to her brother, fire lieutenant Brian Ahearn.

　　"Donald, there's not a day that goes by that we don't think about you," a sobbing Suzanne Gavagan Mascitis said to her brother, Donald Richard Gavagan, Jr, a 35-year-old bond trading firm employee.

　　As the names were read, weeping mourners filed down a ramp to a reflecting memorial pool at the floor of the 6.4-hectare site, which remains virtually empty four years after the attack killed 2,749 people and tore a hole in the New York skyline. Families dropped roses in the still water, some shaking as they inscribed dedications on the wooden edge of the pool.

　　The ceremony came as Hurricane Katrina left Americans once again struggling with a national catastrophe that has thousands of citizens dead and grieving.

　　Mayor Michael Bloomberg opened with words of condolence for those devastated by the terrorist bombings in the London Underground, and for the thousands of people devastated by Katrina.

　　"Today, as we recite the names of those we lost, our hearts turn as well toward London, our sister city, remembering those she has just lost as well," Bloomberg said at the ceremony. "And to Americans suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, our deepest sympathies go out to you this day."

　　The trade center site fell silent at 8:46am, the time at which a hijacked jetliner crashed into the north tower, at 9:03am, the moment a second plane struck the south tower, and at 9:59am, when the south tower fell. A final moment of silence was planned for 10:29am, the precise time when the second tower collapsed.

　　Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice read a poem by Christina Rossetti after the second moment of silence. Governor George E. Pataki also offered a commemorative reading, and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani also was to speak.

　　In Washington, US President George W. Bush marked the anniversary on the South Lawn. And in southwestern Pennsylvania, a memorial service was planned in the field where Flight 93 crashed after it was hijacked by terrorists.

　　In New Orleans, New York firefighters who are helping restore order after Hurricane Katrina paused to hold their own September 11 ceremony. On the lawn of Our Lady of Holy Cross College, they gathered around a makeshift memorial: "Never Forget. 343. FD 9-11 NY," referring to the 343 firefighters killed in the attacks.

　　(The Associated Press)