BBC News with Marion Marshall
President Obama has been leading tributes to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the United States during the 9/11 attacks 10 years ago. The official commemorations began in New York at the site of the World Trade Center, where hijacked passenger planes destroyed the twin towers. As in previous years, the names of those who died were
read out
,
accompan
ied by music and
intersperse
d with tributes from their relatives, such as this one.
"My sister, Patrice Paz, who was on her way out to survival when she ran back to rescue a missing co-worker, you are my hero."
Our correspondent Stephen Evans was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center when it was hit. He was at the New York ceremony and earlier gave this personal impression.
What really strikes me about the names is the great variety of them. McGee, just went through an Irish name, a lot of Hispanic names going through.
It's the very
ordinariness
of the thing which hits you in a way in which each name represents a person.
You know, sure, I do think about turns-left-rather-than-turns-right decisions to stay here and not move on there, which meant I wasn't amongst those names, but really it's about remembering the bigger event. And as somebody involved in that event in a very
peripheral
way, I do find it very, very moving.
The ceremony at Ground Zero in New York drew to a close with four trumpeters from the police and fire departments in the US military playing this lament.