A coalition of mobile phone and pager manufacturers and wireless carriers are joining forces to try to find possible survivors in the rubble of the World Trade Center twin towers, officials have said.
Families and friends of suspected victims from Tuesday's disaster can call a toll-free number and give the mobile phone numbers and pager numbers so Lucent Technologies and others in the wireless industry can try to locate the devices and, hopefully, survivors.
"They're going to utilize that information, and in co-operation with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration), in their efforts to try and locate any survivors," said Mr Denny Betz, a spokesman for BellSouth.
"We have established the call center that will receive calls from family and friends of suspected victims and from those people we will gather information about whatever wireless devices they may have," he said.
That would include mobile phones, the telephone numbers as well as pagers and the pin numbers used to send messages.
The toll-free number is 1-877-348-8579, FEMA said. The coalition has dubbed itself the Wireless Emergency Response Team.