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ALMOST 100 Britons have been confirmed dead in the US terror attacks but the final tally is expected to be several hundred higher, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has disclosed.
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More than 80 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre but thousands are thought to have died in Tuesday's kamikaze plane attacks there and on the Pentagon in Washington.
More than a dozen finance companies with strong British links and many British staff had occupied the WTC before the terrorists struck. One of the largest number of missing Britons were attending a conference organised by financial technology company Risk Waters on the 106th floor of the centre's North Tower.
Last night the company said around 180 men and women were due to attend the conference, which started at 8.30am, and all attempts to locate the delegates had so far failed. A spokesman for the London-based company said; 'We are unable to find out if they managed to evacuate.' However, the spokesman said some of the delegates had not arrived by the time the planes hit.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley, which rented 50 floors in the two towers, said most of its 3,500 staff had been accounted for. The company could not say how many Britons were among its staff.
A spokesman at Marsh and McLennan, a UK-US insurance brokerage, said 900 employees - almost half of its 1,700 workforce - were missing.
British brokers Cantor Fitzgerald - which had offices on floors 101, 103, 104 and 105 of the centre - said it was still trying to locate most of its 1,000 staff. A spokesman said the company had compiled a preliminary 'safe list' but that only numbered between 150 and 200.
A spokesman at merchant bank Lehman Bros said 'the majority' of its 5,000-strong workforce had been contacted but staff were working to find the rest.
British consulate officials are now working with emergency servicesin New York and Washington to help them contact relatives of the dead and injured. Helplines have been set up in both cities for friends and relatives.
Last night the father of one missing British man, Nigel Thompson, said none of the family had heard from him yet. Norman Thompson, a retired policeman, said his son had lived in New York for more than five years with his twin brother Neil.
He was working for Cantor Fitzgerald and spoke to his brother shortly after the first attack. Eighteen minutes later the tower where he was working was also struck. His father said: 'All we can hope is that Nigel is either in hospital or just unable to make contact. With each phone call we are hoping there will be someone saying he has been found.'
The company has sent a poem by Henry Scott-Holland in an e-mail message to staff. It begins: 'Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room.'
Despite the sense of desperation in the City yesterday, there were stories of hope. Banker Simon Perkins, 32, saved more than 60 of his staff from certain death by leading them to safety moments before the World Trade Centre collapsed.
Perkins, a merchant banker, was making tea on the 52nd floor of an office block lying in the shadow of the centre. As the first plane struck, he calmly put it down and ordered staff to follow him out of the building. Moments later it was flattened by debris.
Carolyne Phillips was working in the Centre when the first plane struck. Phillips, from Sully in South Wales, was on the phone to colleagues in London when she heard a 'huge bang'.
Speaking from Manhattan last night, she said: 'I looked out of the window and saw debris flying down from above. We tried to get as far away as possible.'
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