High-tech community mourns New York dead

As rescue workers continue the search for survivors of last Tuesday's disasters in New York and Washington, the list of people dead and missing from the technology community continues to grow.

Global consultancy Accenture is the latest firm to join the tragic roll call, with 12 employees still missing in the lower Manhattan area. Concerned about effect on friends and family, the company has not released details of the missing staff but at least two are believed to be from the UK.

Indian software developer Wipro also fears for four missing employees who were working on the 97th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers at the time of the attack.

In a statement, the company said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who are still missing, and they continue to remain the immediate focus."

Over 100 delegates at the Risk Waters 2001 Financial Technology Conference remain unaccounted for. Attendees were listening to the opening keynote at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 106th floor of the north tower when the first hijacked jet crashed into the side of the building.

Delegates included staff from Compaq, a managing director of Merrill Lynch and an executive director from UBS Warburg. Risk Waters has been unable to find 16 of its own staff and the company said it was making every effort to locate the missing individuals.

The plane which hit the north tower, American Airlines flight 11, carried a high number of tech workers, including Compaq consultant Jeffrey Coombs; Edmund Glazer, CFO of optical networking company MRV Communications; Daniel Lewin, co-founder of Akamai Technologies; Jeff Mladenik and Andrew Curry Green, both employees at Elogic; Sun Microsystems' director Phil Rosenzweig and two staff from Boston-based Alta Communications.

Passengers from the second plane to hit the WTC, United Airlines flight 175, included PricewaterhouseCoopers' partner Patrick Quigley; James Hayden, CFO of software firm Netegrity and three executives from German company BCT Software.

Three associates from Xerox's business-services unit in the WTC are also unaccounted for. The document company operated facilities in both towers for its customers. The Xerox Foundation has pledged $1m towards the relief effort.