Last of the Twin Towers

It was a rusting column of iron alone in a concrete wilderness, but the sparks flying from the welders' torches last night marked the last act in the life of what had once been the World Trade Center.

The lone girder is all that remains of nearly two million tons of rubble that carpeted lower Manhattan less than nine months ago. In a symbolic gesture it was allowed to stand until all else had been removed.

Adorned with the names of fire engine companies and photographs of their dead, the 35ft girder was cut down and reverentially carried away in the first of three ceremonies this week to mark the end of the huge recovery effort.

The column stood in what was once the basement of the South Tower and was gradually revealed as the tangle of steel and concrete was carried away.

In the last few months it was topped by the US flag. After it was lowered onto a flatbed lorry and a wreath placed on top, dozens of construction workers who had been invited to watch reached out for the last time as it was driven away to be stored as part of a future memorial. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg called the ceremony a "night to reflect and remember".

The site has been cleared several months ahead of schedule in an massive effort that saw work carriedout around the clock without even a break for Christmas Day. The future of the site is still being discussed.

With the last lorry-loads of rubble leaving the site over the weekend, it was also the end of hopes of finding the bodies of nearly 1,800 people still missing after the attack on 11 September. Hopes of identifying them now rest on DNA testing on nearly 20,000 body parts, most merely fragments of bone.

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