Rob Riggle recalls 'apocalyptic' scene at Ground Zero while searching for survivors after 9/11

Rob Riggle is looking back at 9/11 and the "apocalyptic" scene he witnessed while assisting at Ground Zero .

During a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the actor and retired U.S.

Marine officer recalled the scene at Ground Zero following the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, calling it a "surreal" thing to process.

"It was so unreal that it was surreal," he said.

"I was looking at skyscrapers that had the front of the building clawed out from the falling of the towers.

They had gouged out other buildings.

They had knocked other buildings over.

They had weakened buildings to such a state that they would collapse." He remembered seeing the Brooks Brothers store across the street from the towers, saying "it looked like Godzilla had scratched out the front" of the building, as it "was all gutted out from where falling debris had smashed into" it.

SALVATION ARMY RESPONDER OPENS UP ON 9/11 CANCER BATTLE, PHONE CALL THAT CHANGED HIS LIFE "Then you had burned-out fire trucks and police cars and there were pictures and paper debris, and it was just, it was surreal," he explained.

"It was surreal to see that much of Manhattan laying in some sort of apocalyptic ruin.

It was shocking, and it was hard to process for sure." Riggle was on site working as a member of the U.S.

Marine Corps Reserve based in Manhattan.

He was among firefighters, police officers, military personnel, construction workers and volunteers who lined up and cleared debris by hand in buckets.

They avoided using machinery to remove the rubble, in order to avoid hurting potential survivors trapped underneath.