CROWDS of New Yorkers cheered and clapped as the city's saviours battled through the debris and dust.

New York firefighters are being hailed the nation's finest, the best of the best, reports Tracey O'Sullivan of the Shropshire Star, in the city for a wedding.

Entire battalions were lost when the World Trade Centre's twin towers collapsed and hundreds are feared dead.

A total of 360 police and firefighters remain missing, presumed killed.

Among them are the city's fire chief, many top officers and the service's chaplain.

But the city's remaining crews are working 24 hours a day to help rescue anyone left alive underneath the mass of twisted metal and concrete.

Many have been treated for severe lacerations - the wounds caused as they search for bodies with their bare hands.

One off-duty firefighter taking a short break yesterday said the loss of life had hit firefighters across the city really hard.

He said whole teams from fire departments in the city were missing in the carnage.

He said all they could hope for now were miracles.

But New Yorkers are determined to show how much they appreciate the courage of their front line heroes.

As crews raced through the streets of Lower Manhattan crowds lined the streets to pay tribute to their bravery and cheer them on.

Spontaneous applause broke out as the weary heroes continued their round-the-clock mission.

They have lost friends and colleagues, some with more than 40 years service, but they are still working, exhausted and grief stricken, in the hope that even now survivors may be pulled alive from the rubble.

Emergency services continued today to pick through the debris around the site of the World Trade Centre as danger still loomed above them.

At least four buildings which had been part of the complex and which had survived the blast were at risk of collapse, prompting an evacuation of the area last night as one started to crumble.

But today exhausted firefighters and police were back digging at the ruins, desperately trying to find survivors and using sound locators and thermal imaging equipment to aid the search.