The American Red Cross on September 25 launched a $100 million gift program to help the families of the nearly 7,000 people dead or missing after hijacked jets slammed into US landmarks 2 weeks ago.

"We have never faced a disaster of this size, scope or intensity.... What has taken place is extraordinary and we must respond in an extraordinary way," Bernadine Healy, president of the American Red Cross, told a news conference.

The humanitarian body has pared down paperwork for victims' families to a single-page form and is trying to dispatch checks overnight to make the tax-free grants available as quickly as possible. Last weekend, the so-called Liberty Fund sent out $600,000 in aid.

"Remember many of these people are missing -- there's no death certificate.... Their families can't access normal resources... you need a cash infusion to get you through that period of time," Healy said outside the group's Washington headquarters.

Two hijacked commercial airplanes on September 11 destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center, another damaged the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and a fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

The Red Cross Liberty Fund will help with funeral expenses, repatriation of bodies and allow relatives living abroad to attend memorial ceremonies.

"It's hard enough to grieve when you also have enormous financial instability.... Never has the loss of life and the loss of earning potential had such a magnitude," Healy added.

Families of both American and foreign victims can claim assistance under four categories: rent and mortgage payments, daily expenditures, funeral-related costs and additional expenses.

Daily costs include food, transportation and clothing, calculated from Washington and New York metropolitan data and multiplied by the number of family members.

Healy said it should take one day to process applications from families whose loss could be certified by a company or public agency. Families of victims who were visiting the Trade Center or the Pentagon might have to wait an extra day while their applications get checked, she added.

The Red Cross said it was setting up three warehouses stocked with food and cleaning materials in New York for those struggling to rebuild their lives from the debris covering lower Manhattan.

Stuart Fraser, vice president of Cantor Fitzgerald, a securities broker that lost 733 employees in the destruction of the World Trade Center, thanked the Red Cross for its help.

"What the wives and children are telling me is, 'We need help now, we need help immediately,"' said Fraser, whose brother-in-law, friends and colleagues died in the attacks.

Reuters September 25, 2001