New Yorkers return to work

New York has declared Wall Street open for business, even as thick smoke and dust linger in the air and rescue crews continue searching a mountain of rubble.

The missing haunt the streets as home-made posters featuring their smiling faces are stuck to countless telephone poles and restaurant windows.

The confirmed death toll hit 190, with 5,097 listed as missing, as rescuers reached a train platform 80ft below the World Trade Centre's remains - but found no survivors.

Anna Blasi, who was returning to her job as a casting director a few miles north of the devastation, said: "Just going about everyday business is going to be hard. I'm here, and thousands aren't."

Six days after terrorists toppled the twin towers with two hijacked jets, the New York Stock Exchange and the Mercantile Exchange - as well as City Hall, other government buildings and courthouses - are set to reopen.

Anxious investors are waiting to see how the markets will respond after the longest shutdown since the Depression.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has said: "The life of the city goes on, and I encourage people to go about their lives."

Those returning to work will have to step carefully as the narrow streets of the city's southern tip, home to the financial and government sectors, are crisscrossed with heavy utility cables and portable generators hum on the pavements.

The Wall Street subway station is closed, and only subways on the east side of downtown Manhattan will run at all. A new ferry service will carry passengers across the East River from the borough of Brooklyn.

The New York Stock Exchange had a successful test on Saturday of its computer and communications systems. The computerised Nasdaq Stock Market, which doesn't have a trading floor, said it had also conducted a successful test of its systems.