NYC to sift new WTC material for human remains

NEW YORK (CNN) -- New York City will begin sifting April 1 through 590 cubic yards of material from the World Trade Center site in search of human remains, the city announced Friday.

The city expanded its search for human remains at the site in October 2006, when potential human remains were found in manhole on the site, the city said in a release. Since then, the city has identified 34 new victims of the 9/11 attacks and linked more than 2,435 human remains to previously identified victims.

Of the 2,753 men and women killed in the attacks, only 1,634 have been identified. Sixty-two percent of remains recovered from the site have been matched with a victim.

The new material includes 539 of the 590 cubic yards gathered from the area known as the Vehicle Security Center at the WTC site, which had previously been inaccessible.

Material was also gathered from the World Financial Center and the West Side. The city will use a new sifting procedure developed since 2006 at a forensic mobile sifting platform at Fresh Kills in Staten Island.