PICS: Superstorm Sandy leaves 70 dead, 4mn without power

Superstorm Sandy left a trail of bodies and wreckage on the densely-populated United States East Coast, claiming over 70 lives and sparking burglaries in flooded neighbourhoods as nearly 4 million Americans still struggled without power and communication.

Neighbourhoods in New York and New Jersey were still water-logged, with rescue workers pulling out bodies from wreckage, as the death toll rose to over 70 in the country.Among those killed in the natural disaster, 24 were from New York City alone, 8 were from New Jersey and 4 from Connecticut.

More than 3.75 million people entered a third day without electricity, the New York Times reported. New York's Governor Andrew M Cuomo said initial damage estimates "project up to $6 billion in lost economic revenue", in the state.

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The death toll seemed certain to rise as rescuers checked basements that had flooded, trapping homeowners inside. The wall of water driven ashore by the storm even flooded  three police stations, two in Brooklyn and one in the Rockaway section of Queens.

Fifteen people in the Far Rockaway section of Queens and nine in Coney Island were charged with burglary and other offenses in connection with looting at stores, taking advantage of the natural calamity which hit the region on Monday.

Among them was a 29-year-old woman who faced a weapons charge 'after the safe she was carrying from a store was found to contain a firearm', Paul J Browne, the chief spokesman for the police department, said.

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A wide stretch of Lower Manhattan remained dark, as did the Jersey Shore, waterfront neighbourhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, and most of Long Island.

But the first section of Manhattan that lost power on Monday night, after an explosion and fire at a substation on East 14th Street, had its lights turned back on, an energy company executive said.

In New Jersey, executives at Public Service Electric and Gas Company said 900,000 customers were still without power, down from a peak of 1.7 million on Tuesday.

Cuomo said restoring power to Long Island, where the storm knocked out power to 90 per cent of the Long Island Power Authority's customers, posed particular difficulties.

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He said 1,800 utility workers from other areas, mostly upstate, were being sent there to provide extra help. Some 10,000 army and Air National Guard forces were on duty in the 13 states affected by the storm.

New York Mayor Michael R Bloomberg said his evacuation orders remained in effect for low-lying communities from Coney Island in Brooklyn to Battery Park City in Manhattan.

Bloomberg said they would not be lifted until the buildings department had had time to inspect buildings in those areas. "I know it's annoying to everyone," he said at a briefing, "but we don't need more loss of life."

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