World Trade Centre's last standing section torn down

The last standing piece of the World Trade Centre towers has been torn down and saved for possible use in a memorial.

The seven-story twisted metal ruin has come to symbolise the terrorist attacks.

It has been captured in scores of photos of Ground Zero since the September 11 attack on the twin 110-story towers.

"We're going to preserve as much of that wall as possible," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said. "We may be doing a memorial with some or part of that wall."

Workers then attached cables to the structure and began bringing it to the ground.

Amanda Gallagher, a Manhattan tour guide, was one of several people watching near the site as the last chunk of the building came down. She was supposed to lead a tour of the trade centre on the afternoon of the attack.

The metal wall "should be part of a memorial, so it can stand as a lasting memory to all the people who died there," she said.

Preserving the ruined tower as a memorial was suggested by Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and by John Tierney in a column in The New York Times, saying: "It's the building hanging on, still refusing to fall, just like New Yorkers."

The number of confirmed dead at the trade centre has risen to 287 as the number of missing dropped to 6,347.

Mayor Giuliani says the numbers are likely to change. Of the confirmed dead, 224 have been identified.