September 11 death toll drops after three found alive

Three people reported missing in the World Trade Centre have been confirmed as alive.

Three people reported missing in the World Trade Centre have been confirmed as alive.

Coordinators of the massive missing persons effort say investigators have spoken with the three people.

The discovery reduces the city's official count of people killed or reported missing in the terrorist attack to 2,792.

A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner, identified the three as Mr Jeffrey Montgomery, of St Joseph, Missouri, Mr William Yemele, of Gaithersburg, Maryland and Ms Olivia Khemrat, of Jersey City, New Jersey.

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The list of missing still could change as further errors are uncovered, she said.

The three names plus six other mistaken cases were included among the 2,801 victims' names read at a September 11th, 2002, anniversary ceremony, and some are memorialised on a temporary fence at the trade centre site.

Of the 2,792 people believed lost in the attack, 1,439 have been identified - just nine in the last month.

She said the identification process has not slowed as dramatically as the numbers seem to indicate, but rather that recent identifications matched victims already confirmed dead.

The toll does not include the 10 hijackers who died at the trade centre.

AP