Next-generation sequencing has enabled the identification of two additional individuals who died in the 9/11 World Trade Center attack 20 years ago, the Washington Post reports.
According to the Post, about 40 percent of the people, or about 1,000 individuals, who died there that day have yet to be officially identified. It adds that the all the remains that have been collected have been tested and have been undergoing additional testing as new tools and technologies emerge.
"We continue to push the science out of necessity to make more identifications," Mark Desire, manager of the World Trade Center DNA Identification Team, says in a statement. "The commitment today is as strong as it was in 2001."
The newly identified individuals include Dorothy Morgan from Hempstead, NY, and a man whose family requested his name be withheld, according to the New York medical examiner's office. It adds that the identification of Morgan and the unnamed man were the first since 2019.
Nykiah Morgan, Dorothy Morgan' daughter, tells NBC New York she had accepted her mother's death, though did sometimes wonder if she was still out there. "Maybe she had amnesia. Maybe she's out living a whole different life and she's happy," she adds at NBC New York.