But something went wrong. Though they didn’t know it, the Janitor had succeeded in tampering with detonation cords for all the explosives along the Westernmost support columns. So, when the bombs on the eastern pillars exploded, these did not. And even while some blew up anyway because of earlier explosions, it wasn’t enough. The full explosive force acting on the Eastern pillars obliterated them, and then touched off the Diesel Fuel in the generators, while the Western ones were badly mauled, they still stood. The explosion, a combination of searing Diesel Fuel, superheated gases from the explosion, the shrapnel of concrete slabs and metal shards, punched upwards through the five lowest floors. The force shattered windows on the neighbouring Flondon Stock Exchange, and turned the glass into even more shrapnel, tearing people apart. But it didn’t stop there. The flames of the burning Diesel weakened the trusses supporting the floors, making the floors sag. The explosion had already devastated the steel infrastructure of the building, and left weaker exterior support columns to hold up the rest of the tower. If the plan had gone perfectly, then the building would just collapse in on itself, as the weakened lower floors would not be able to support the tremendous weight of those above. But the plan hadn’t gone perfectly. The Western Tower had been robbed of the two Eastern Support Columns, meaning it had no support for that side of the tower excepting the steel exterior supports. Now these were on the point of melting, bathed in blazing Diesel, so it was only a matter of time before the whole construction came toppling over to one side. And that it did. Exactly two minutes after the initial blast, the Western Tower came crashing down. With the wail of tortured metal and its terrified occupants, it fell like a giant domino into the flank of the Eastern Tower, which was still filled with clerks, businessmen and secretaries. The upper section of the Western Tower, which was still very much intact, ploughed a gouge into the side of the Eastern Tower, tearing a wide hole through twenty floors before it lodged there. For a minute more, the Western tower leaned entirely on its Eastern companion, both now bleeding a hail of glass and steel. At the end of that minute, with a gut wrenching groan, audible for miles around, the tower continued its descent. The top of the Western tower had actually [i]snapped[/i] from the lower section, and plummeted alone under gravity while the rest smashed into the ground, throwing a dust cloud of glass shards and other material high into the air, obscuring the sun. The total number of fatalities wouldn’t become clear for another two years, but in the space of three minutes, 4,000 people, DCP personnel, innocent bystanders, Stock Exchange bankers and rescue workers had been killed. More would die in months to come from the thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapsed Tower. They consisted of more than 2,500 contaminants, more specifically: 50% non-fibrous material and construction debris; 40% glass and other fibres; 9.2% cellulose; and 0.8% asbestos, lead, and mercury. There were also unprecedented levels of dioxin and PAHs from fires which burned for three days. Some of the dispersed substances (crystalline silica, lead, cadmium, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) were carcinogenic; other substances caused kidney, heart, liver and nervous system deterioration. In addition, the economic aftermath was terrible. For a few hours, the Treasury lost contact with some banks in the immediate region, but was quickly restored. However, the stock exchange building had been ruined, coated in toxic dust and an alternative site would not be found for a whole week. The Floodian Industrial Average (FIA) stock index fell by 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8920, its biggest ever one-day point decline. By the end of the week, the FIA had fallen by 1500 points in its largest one-week drop ever recorded. Such was the result of the world’s most devastating terrorist attack. [Edited on 07.12.2007 2:42 AM PDT]