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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced this Tuesday the release of thousands of documents showing that after 9/11, authorities did not reveal everything they knew about the toxicity of the air in the city.
The disclosure comes on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which caused the deaths of 2,977 people in the United States, mostly due to the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York.
More than 9,400 people have died due to illnesses related to their exposure to the area in the years since, according to a federal medical monitoring program.
"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 their liability," the mayor said in a press conference.
In over 170,000 pages, the documents address health issues, air quality, and the New York authorities' response to the attacks.
The disclosure is part of an agreement with 9/11 Health Watch, a victim advocacy group that had taken legal action to force the city to make the documents public.
"For 25 years, four different mayoral administrations hid from the public, the United States Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the City really knew about the danger of toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and western Brooklyn after the collapse of the World Trade Center, even as city officials continued to convey to the public the message that the air was 'safe and acceptable'," said the group's director, Benjamin Chevat, in a statement.
When asked for the names of the officials who had hidden information from the public, Mamdani responded: "This goes through a multitude of people whom New Yorkers have trusted."
[Publicidad]