‘The smell, I remember still – the burning’: Welsh first minister recalls working in New York after 9/11published at 09:09 BST
09:09 BST
Brendon Williams
BBC News
Image source, Getty Images
Wales’ First
Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth covered the aftermath of 9/11 while working as a BBC
journalist.
He was on
holiday with his wife Llinos and their daughter, and was travelling from
Vermont to meet his in-laws, who had flown from Wales to join them in New
York.
After being
reassured they were safe, he headed to New York City, bought a
mobile phone, and reported on the terror attacks, “knowing that the world
would likely never be the same again”.
Although he
had been to New York previously, he says: “I remember arriving and it
being a distinctly different city.
“The
smell, I remember still – the burning.
“This
bold city, quieter. I remember the sense of shock, which was palpable on the
streets of New York,” he tells BBC-produced Newyddion S4C, external.
The first
minister says much of the history of the last 25 years “stemmed from that
event”.
“The
beginning of the ‘war on terror’, the tensions, Islamophobia, the way that
geopolitics have been shaped.”
He adds:
“We’ve also learnt that cool heads are needed, even in those most horrific
of circumstances.”
Image source, BBC/Newyddion S4C.