9/11-related illnesses have killed more FDNY than attack itself

Illnesses related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks have now killed more Fire Department of New York members than the attack itself.

On Sept. 11, 2001, 343 FDNY firefighters lost their lives. With the announcement of 32 more deaths recently, the total number of deaths after the attacks due to related illnesses reached 377, leaving the total number of FDNY fatalities at 720.

"As we do every year, we will reflect on the 343 members who died that day, and we will be sobered in knowing that those insurmountable losses did not end at the World Trade Center site," Fire Commissioner Robert S. Tucker said, Axios reported .

"Instead, we have seen our members become sick because of time they spent working in the rescue and recovery," he added.

The New York City Police Department similarly suffered with a much wider discrepancy — while 23 officers died during the attacks, 377 have since died from related diseases.

When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11, hundreds of thousands were exposed to toxic contaminants.

The collapse "created massive dust clouds that filled the air and left hundreds of highly populated city blocks covered with ash, debris, and harmful particles, including asbestos, silica, metals, concrete, and glass," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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"Fires within the debris pile and the collapse of 7 WTC burned through the end of December 2001 with continued flare-ups in 2002, releasing carcinogenic combustion by-products," it added. "These contaminants remained in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn for an undetermined amount of time after 9/11."

The organization estimated that 400,000 people were "exposed to toxic contaminants, risk of physical injury, and physically and emotionally stressful conditions in the days, weeks, and months following the attacks."