In response to the numerous reports of molten metal under ground zero, defenders of the official version of 9/11 have tried to argue that it was not steel, but some other kind of metal with a lower melting point.
Are they right? Let's take a look at what eyewitnesses say.
Here are what top experts who eyewitnessed the molten metal say:
- The structural engineer responsible for the design of the WTC, described fires still burning and molten steel still running 21 days after the attacks (page 3)
- A retired professor of physics and atmospheric science said "in mid-October when they would pull out a steel beam, the lower part would be glowing dull red, which indicates a temperature on the order of 500 to 600 °C. And we know that people were turning over pieces of concrete in December that would flash into fire--which requires about 300 °C. So the surface of the pile cooled rather rapidly, but the bulk of the pile stayed hot all the way to December"
- The head of a team of scientists studying the potential health effects of 9/11, reported, "Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel"
- Hazardous materials experts also stated that, six weeks after 9/11, "There are pieces of steel being pulled out [from as far as six stories underground] that are still cherry red" and "the blaze is so 'far beyond a normal fire' that it is nearly impossible to draw conclusions about it based on other fires" (pay-per-view)
- An expert stated about World Trade Center building 7, "A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been PARTLY EVAPORATED in extraordinarily high temperatures" (pay-per-view). Note that evaporation means conversion from a liquid to a gas; so the steel beams in building 7 were subjected to temperatures high enough to melt and evaporate them
- According to reporter Christopher Bollyn, MarkLoizeaux, president the world's top demolition company, and Peter Tully, head of a large construction firm, said the following:
Tully told AFP that he had seen pools of "literally molten steel" in the rubble.
Loizeaux confirmed this: "Yes, hot spots of molten steel in the basements," he said, "at the bottom of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven levels."
The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed," he said. He confirmed that molten steel was also found at WTC 7, which mysteriously collapsed in the late afternoon.
Here's what eyewitness firefighters say:
- New York firefighters recalled in a documentary film, "heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel"
- A NY firefighter described molten steel flowing at ground zero, and said it was like a "foundry" or like "lava"
- According to a member of New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing, who was at Ground Zero from September 22 to October 6, "One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots"
- As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O'Toole saw a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, "was dripping from the molten steel"
Here's what other credible eyewitnesses say:
- A public health advisor who arrived at Ground Zero on September 12, said that "feeling the heat" and "seeing the molten steel" there reminded him of a volcano
- An employee of New Jersey's Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue witnessed "Fires burn[ing and molten steel flow[ing] in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet"
- A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams"
- An Occupational Safety and Health Administration Officer at the Trade Center reported a fire truck 10 feet below the ground that was still burning two weeks after the Tower collapsed, "its metal so hot that it looked like a vat of molten steel"
- A NY Department of Sanitation spokeswoman said "for about two and a half months after the attacks, in addition to its regular duties, NYDS played a major role in debris removal - everything from molten steel beams to human remains..."
