Portsmouth to stage a memorial to mark the 20th anniversary of September 11 terror attacks

Community leaders from across Portsmouth will attend the memorial tribute at the city’s hope garden on Saturday.

The service will take place at midday in the garden, which sits between Southsea Castle and the D-Day Story museum.

Father Bob White, from St Mary's Church, Portsea, will lead the ceremony, with the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Councillor Frank Jonas.

Attendees will have the opportunity to plant a bulb in the hope garden, which was planted after the 2001 attacks as a symbol that hope always springs eternal.

Cllr Jonas said: ‘The September 11 attacks shook the world and it is important we remember that and pay our respects to those who lost their lives.’

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, teams of suicide attackers seized four US passenger jets in the most deadly terrorist attack in US history.

Two of the jets slammed into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre complex, toppling the skyscrapers, killing thousands in the process.

The first hit the North Tower at 8.46am local time. The second crashed into the South Tower minutes later at 9.03am.

The violent collision ignited catastrophic infernos in both the towers, trapping people on the upper floors.

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In less than two hours, both the 110-storey mega towers collapsed in massive clouds of dust, in a tragedy the stunned the world.

Elsewhere, at 9.37am a third hijacked plane destroyed the western face of the Pentagon, the giant HQ of the US military outside the nation’s capital of Washington DC.

A fourth jet, United Airlines 93, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania at 10.03am after passengers fought back against the terrorists. It is thought the hijackers had meant to attack the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

In all, 2,977 people – not counting the 19 hijackers – lost their lives, most of them in New York.

The youngest victim was two-year-old Christine Lee Hanson, who died on one of the planes with her parents Peter and Sue.

The terror attack sparked the war in Afghanistan, with the last UK and US troops having pulled out last month.

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