In New York the September 11, 2001, death toll has dropped by 40 to 2985 after investigators found fraud, duplication and people once thought dead, city officials said.

The official death toll has fluctuated frequently since two hijacked passenger planes were flown into the 110-storey twin towers of the World Trade Centre at a time when tens of thousands were normally in the vicinity of the lower Manhattan complex.

Some of the 40 taken off the list were originally reported missing by people living overseas.

“Forty names have been taken off the list,” said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city’s medical examiner.

“Two or three are still being investigated, so those could still be removed in the future.

“Some people were duplication, some were alive and didn’t even know they had been reported missing; There are Other people who claimed people were missing who didn’t even exist,” she said.

Since the tragedy, it has been discovered some people invented the names of people to fraudulently claim compensation from the city.

New York police have arrested 40 people falsely claiming they lost loved ones. Other names removed yesterday included people whose relatives said they were near the towers at the time but can give little more information.

In and around the twin towers there were 2752 deaths, while 189 people died when a plane was flown into the Pentagon. Another 44 were killed when a hijacked jet crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

The official tolls do not include 19 hijackers linked to Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, the global network Washington blamed for a series of attacks on US interests abroad and at home since the mid-1990s.

The destruction of the twin towers was so great that medical officials have only been able to positively identify the remains of 1527 victims.

Days after the attacks that caused the collapse of the soaring towers, officials feared the number of people killed would be more than 6000.

The 40 names removed from the twin towers toll had been legally declared dead, with death certificates issued based on documented proof or witness reports that they were in the World Trade Centre or aboard one of the hijacked planes.

Their names were also read aloud at the second anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Centre site.