United States President George Bush prepared to give a speech in Louisiana on Thursday outlining government plans to rebuild the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina, as the disaster death toll passed the 700 mark.
The official death toll of the August 29 storm rose to 708 after Louisiana state confirmed another 51 deaths. State officials confirmed that 474 people were killed in Louisiana.
Another 218 deaths have been recorded in Mississippi, two in Alabama and 14 in Florida.
The death toll is likely to rise as troops and police search empty houses in New Orleans, though officials acknowledged that initial predictions of 10 000 dead were over-pessimistic.
Meanwhile, the south-eastern US coastline was hit by another hurricane, Ophelia, which early on Thursday lashed the state of North Carolina.
Bush was also to address helping the one million people displaced by the storm who have been scattered across the US.
On Tuesday, Bush said the hurricane ”exposed serious problems in our response capabilities at all levels of government”.
He added: ”To the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.”
At the United Nations on Wednesday, Bush thanked the world community for the hurricane aid that has come from dozens of countries.
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin warned in a television interview that more hideous discoveries will come out of the search of abandoned houses.
But on a more optimistic note, Nagin said about 180 000 evacuated residents are expected to return to the flood-stricken city by next week.
”Within the next week or two, we should have about 180 000 people back in the city of New Orleans,” Nagin told CNN’s Larry King Live late on Wednesday.
He said electricity and running water should be available in some parts of the city.
About 485 000 people fled before or after Katrina battered the city and flood waters then devastated much of the jazz capital.
”Once they come back, we’ll have the critical services for them to at least live a semi-normal life,” he said.
Rescuers were surprised when they found a survivor — a man who had been locked in his home for 16 days — alive.
A rescue team found Edgar Hollingsworth (74) unconscious and emaciated in his darkened New Orleans home. Doctors were amazed that he had survived so long.
National Guard Lieutenant Frederick Fell broke down the door of Hollingsworth’s house after looking through a window and seeing the elderly man’s foot hanging over the side of a couch.
Hollingsworth was barely breathing, and a medical team inserted an intravenous tube under his clavicle because other veins were too weak.
Separately, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti has pressed negligent homicide charges against two owners of a New Orleans nursing home, where the bodies of 34 people were found.
A lawyer for the couple called the charges ”ridiculous”. But Foti said he is also investigating the deaths of 45 people at a New Orleans hospital. The bodies were found on Sunday.
While New Orleans made faltering steps toward recovery, Hurricane Ophelia, the seventh of the hurricane season, inflicted floods and power cuts on about 100 000 people in North Carolina on the Atlantic coast.
North Carolina Governor Mike Easley pleaded with the public to heed evacuation warnings, and ordered a state of emergency with dawn-to-dusk curfews in some towns.
Authorities poured emergency workers into North Carolina following vitriolic criticism for their slow response to Katrina.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency had about 250 specialist workers in the state already, Easley said. The Department of Homeland Security also said that several hundred trailers loaded with water and ice and dozens of trailers with emergency meals had been pre-positioned in several states around North Carolina.
In Washington, the Senate homeland security committee was one of three congressional panels to open hearings on Katrina. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers say drastic action is needed to improve government readiness. — Sapa-AFP