The world falls silent for tribute 10 years on

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama and former President George W Bush stood in silence yesterday as a church bell rang twice on the precise moment, ten years after the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

Obama read Psalm 46 that reminds the faithful that God is a refuge and that strength dwells in his city, while Bush read a Civil War letter from President Abraham Lincoln to a mother who lost all five of her sons.

As cellist Yo Yo Ma played mournful background music, relatives of the September 11 dead began entering a transformed Ground Zero — the centrepiece of a day of mourning and remembrance throughout the nation and around the world — to mark 10 years since the worst terrorist attack on American soil.