People who were in ANOTHER COUNTRY on 9/11/2001: What do you remember about news coverage of the event?

was/am in canada and i didn't find out about it until i got home from school. I was like 11 at the time and had never heard of the trade centers so i didn't really take it too seriously. I remember it was on the news non stop for about a week though

Honestly, I can't remember - I know it was on TV but can't tell you what I was doing then. Probably heading to work or something.

In grade 11 math class - went home at lunch and watched the towers fall. It was weird like watching a movie but knowing it was happening IRL. Then I went back to school. We didn't talk about it in class but people were talking about it in the halls.

I was in Beijing. We were visiting friends one night when they got a call to turn on CNN. We were trying to work out whether this was real or a movie when the second plane crashed before our eyes. Our main thought was that we had flown in from the US just two days earlier - what might have been.

I was traveling in South Korea, and it occurred right in the middle of their major daily news broadcast (9-10PM local time). They abruptly stopped everything and the anchor announced that they were getting word from New York City that a plane has crashed into WTC. A few minutes later, they started showing live footage and that ended up including the second plane.

I will probably never forget that moment; it almost seemed surreal at first. I don't remember the details of their coverage, but it included most of the information that got released first, such as the flights that got hijacked, exactly where they hit the WTC, etc.

Since South Korea is a major U.S. ally, their coverage focused on paying tribute to the victims and monitoring the situation closely as it unfolded.

I was in Spain. I remember being incredulous at what was happening. I started watching TV after the first plane hit and thought it might have been an accident. Then I saw the second plane hit and thought, this ain't no accident. The mood of the news stations was the same, everyone was incredulous. There was a mix of horror but also that so many times US actions had hurt people around the world that it was payback time.

Incredible responses so far, team.

Sincere thanks :-)

Search for Gander, Newfoundland, 9/11 if you want an uplifting element of the story to share with your class.

My wife was travelling in Italy at the time with her family. They were around the Cinque Terre area, in the time before Rick Steves and social media exploited the hell out of the place. Being an area of small, remote towns, and being September, there wasn't a ton of exposure there. She and her family weren't aware of anything on the 11th, but on the 12th they saw some photos on papers around town and someone pulled them into a shop to show them TV coverage.

She remembers being out to dinner that night and having people come up to their table and apologize for what happened. The locals were genuinely sad and quite thoughtful about it all.

I woke up late in Seattle because my mom hadn't come in at the usual time to get me up for HS. I walked down the hall to see my mom just staring at the TV in disbelief. Within a few minutes of standing there we watched the 2nd plane hit on the live feed. A chilling moment in time.

I was in Ecuador. I was stopped on my walk to work by a local telling me to go home and watch television. At the time thought it was an interesting insult. Hour and a half later I walked into my apartment and my American roommate was watching TV. Remember a lot of confusion from the news cast.

The joke in Ecuador is that the 2nd largest city with Ecuadorians is New York City. Everybody in Ecuador knows someone in NYC. People would stop and ask me what I knew. I was not able to call home for a few days and it was difficult to get information. Watched Bush's speech at a cafe a few days later and got into a fight with a local who said we deserved it.

Came home in October and did not know what 'Ground Zero' or '9/11' meant in conversation.

Side note: Security was high in Central American airports. Young, cute national police officer in San Jose made extra sure that I was not hiding weapons in my pants.

Wow, that is awesome.

I may edit the last part for my students, tho, lol :-)

300mrunner wrote:

I was in Gaza at the time, for UNRWA.

One of the biggest parties I have ever seen. Dancing, handing out candies...

It was a big day for Palestine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZvbYJMvU

Bvllshit. The people of Palestine would never do something like that.

Have you any footage to backup your ridiculous claims?

Edit: never mind.

I was in Canada, in grade nine French class. One of the vice principals came into our room to tell us and our teacher what had happened, and we were all moved into classrooms and gyms with TVs to watch the news (CBC) for the rest of the period.

CBC's coverage was mostly factual, with some speculation and "reports of reports," so there was probably a lot of the same confusion that existed everywhere. Some of the other students were concerned that the CN Tower would be a target, despite there being no suggestion on the news that this was a global-scale attack.

By the afternoon, after not having watched TV for a couple hours, the names of al Qaeda and Bin Laden were on the board in different classrooms, and we were getting a clearer picture of what went down.

After school, I watched CNN until it was time to go to sleep.

300mrunner wrote:

I was in Gaza at the time, for UNRWA.

One of the biggest parties I have ever seen. Dancing, handing out candies...

It was a big day for Palestine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZvbYJMvU

The videos are fake:

As I recall, Chelsea Clinton was almost killed. I heard Hillary say so.

In Canada, I was working at a Toronto television station and watching an American feed. I remember the reporters flinching from loud banging noises. It turned out to be people jumping off the building when the jet fuel was burning off.

I heard the news while at work (in Canada), but not owning a TV I didn't see anything until later that night. I play in a garage band and we got together that night (as usual) and one of the guys had it on. It freaked me out. I'd heard what it was like, but nothing prepared me for the visuals at all. Our jam that night was really strange, the energy was unlike anything I've experienced before or since.

BASF Intern (back then) wrote:

I was in Berlin on 9/11 and German TV blamed 9/11 on W Bush and Colin Powell for earlier openly siding with Israel, after which Islam stated they would

prepare attacks against the US mainland. Of course no body beleived Islam then.

That's funny-- because Bush had only been in office for less than a year and he really hadn't had time to foul things up yet.

For example, the Bavarians parked a f__king tank outside the US consulate in the middle of Munich.

I'm not sure what it would have actually helped against a terrorist attack, but it was the thought that counted.

Captain Amerikkka wrote:

You have to realize that most foreign countries do not like the U.S.....and with good reason. This crap country bullies, bombs, and invades anyone that dares to cross us.

9/11 was an event that 3000 people perished in. A big number for the U.S., but not so big for most of the Mideastern countries that are bombed and attacked every day by US.

Compared to the amount of innocent men, women, and children the U.S. military kill each year, 3000 lives is a drop in the bucket.

It doesn’t work like that, if we British read that 3000 or so Afghans, Somalis, Chinese maybe, had perished in an explosion, earthquake whatever, we’d feel no real emotion and it would be just a news item on the inner pages.

By contrast, I saw my brother, who is a fire officer, with tears in his eyes for the first time ever as the details were gradually immerging of the loss of so many NY firemen.

It was almost as if he’d lost many of his own colleagues.