Twin Towers Truly a World Trade Center

The World Trade Center was aptly named, judging by the human losses suffered in Tuesday's attack on one of the world's best-known centers of commerce and finance.

While many viewed the calamity as an attack on the United States, the reality is hundreds of citizens from many countries were among those who perished or were injured, a fact that has contributed to the global outrage.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of England told the House of Commons on Thursday that at least 100 Britons were killed on Tuesday, and others had been injured and were being treated in New York hospitals.

To show Britain's support for the United States, Queen Elizabeth on Thursday ordered an unprecedented changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace, where the Star Spangled Banner was played.

Three Aussies were also confirmed dead, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

Half a world away, those losses were felt. "I am an Australian school child. I just want to say that this is making such a big impact," said an e-mail to an Australian newspaper. "I am in year 8, and on Tuesday everyone was in classrooms at lunch and recess watching the news, being deadly silent. I think that it was the only time that everyone was completely silent this year."

Four Irish were also confirmed dead, while an unspecified number of other victims remain unaccounted for, according to the Irish Independent. Ron Clifford, an Irish native, was fortunate enough to escape the collapse, only to find his sister and niece, Ruth and Juliana McCourt, were aboard one of the planes that slammed into the Twin Towers.

Two Canadians were also killed, one on each of the doomed United flights. But many more may have perished.

"There are approximately 60 to 100 Canadians still unaccounted for, that could have been in or around the World Trade Center. These numbers are based on calls we've received from friends and relatives," said Martine Lagacé, spokesperson for the Consulate of Canada.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman told the New Zealand Herald some 140 New Zealanders were still missing. But more than 900 others were confirmed safe.

In Auckland's Aotea Square Wednesday night, approximately 1,000 Kiwis gathered for a candlelight vigil to remember the victims and comfort one another.

Twenty-two Japanese were also missing. The towers housed offices for 36 Japanese companies, said Kohei Saito, press officer for the Embassy of Japan. Fuji Bank is bearing the largest loss, with 12 of its employees missing.

Ashok Bajpai, consul with Indian Consulate in New York, said there were no confirmed deaths among his people. But as many as 250 to 300 Indians could be missing. Forty-one others had been hospitalized, and 73 more escaped safely.

The Mexican news agency Notimex reported 12 of the 100 to150 Mexicans working in the towers are still missing.

Switzerland was missing between 250 to 350 of its nationals, according to Manuel Sager, of the Swiss embassy. But it could have been much worse.

"The count of those who are possibly missing has continually gone down, from 700 to 350 to 250 as of Thursday morning," said Sager. "We expect this number to go down even more because we establish this number from people calling in from Switzerland who haven’t yet located someone," he said.

There were also two Swiss on board the hijacked flights.