On the eighteenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks this past Wednesday, New Zealand firefighters   performed a powerful haka in Auckland to honor 9/11 first responders.

Video shows the firefighters wearing their service uniforms as they performed the Maori tradition while a crowd of dignitaries and other firefighters dressed in their operational gear looked on. Hakas are typically performed as a sign of great respect and are often presented at funerals, celebrations or sporting events.

To pay tribute to those who died in the World Trade Center, over 200 firefighters climbed Auckland’s Sky Tower on the anniversary of the attacks. Three chiefs from the New York Fire Department were also in attendance at the event.

Tributes took place all over the world on the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Victims’ relatives headed to Ground Zero on Wednesday morning for a moment of silence and the tolling of bells at 8:46 a.m., the exact time a hijacked plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s north tower.

“As long as the city will gift us this moment, I will be here,” Margie Miller, who lost her husband, Joel, said at the ceremony, which she goes to every year. ‘I want people to remember.”

After going to the ceremony so many years, Margie said that she has bonded with the other victims’ families.

“There’s smiles in between the tears that say we didn’t do this journey on our own, that we were here for each other,” she said.

Watch the haka tribute in the video below.