A BLACKBURN woman was today still on tenterhooks as she waited for news that relatives living in disaster-hit Manhattan were safe and well.

Advertising production worker at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph Sophia Jones said she had frantically been trying to make contact with loved ones since watching the tragedy unfold on Tuesday.

Sophia, of Hozier Street, Intack, explained that her adopted brother Stefan, 32, had relatives throughout the US. His aunt lives with her surgeon husband in a Manhattan penthouse block. Sophia is just one of tens of people from East Lancashire left waiting for news about the fate of friends and relatives.

She said: "So far we haven't heard anything, but the way we are looking at it is that no news is good news. It's just a case of keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best, there's not much else we can do."

Stefan was working as a courier and baggage handler at Heathrow Airport, but was moving to Manchester this weekend to enrol as a student at Manchester University."