Obama tours disaster zone as Sandy toll mounts

US: President Barack Obama toured New Jersey's devastated coastline on Wednesday, vowing to stay with flood victims "for the long haul" as the US toll from superstorm Sandy passed 60.

New York slowly got back on its feet. The stock exchanges and John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty airports reopened. But more than six million homes and businesses, the majority of them in New York state and neighboring New Jersey, remained without power.

The true extent of one of the largest and most destructive storms ever to strike the United States became clearer -- entire coastal communities in Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey are submerged or cut off by floodwaters.

US media reports said 63 Americans had been confirmed dead across 15 storm-ravaged states, bringing Sandy's overall toll to 135 including Canada and the Caribbean, where Haiti and Cuba were hit particularly hard.

Just six days before America goes to the polls, with his re-election chances hanging in the balance, Obama surveyed the damage in New Jersey, where a massive relief operation had swung into gear with tens of thousands of homes under water.

Taking a third day off the campaign trail to manage the response to the disaster despite Tuesday's looming election, Obama, accompanied by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, offered a show of strength and support to victims.

"You guys are in my thoughts and prayers. We are going to be here for the long haul," he told a group of evacuees at a makeshift shelter after listening to stories of loss and survival.

Obama and Christie clambered aboard the president's Marine One helicopter to fly over New Jersey's Atlantic coast -- over houses tipped off their foundations, streets inundated with sand, and still flooded neighborhoods.

In the community of Seaside Heights, Obama saw the twisted iron of an amusement park which took a heavy hit from the storm, and a nearby pier that was ripped apart.

Although the main focus was on New Jersey and New York, particularly lower Manhattan and Long Island, Obama said he was also concerned about Connecticut and West Virginia, where heavy snows had made certain areas inaccessible.

Storm damage forces UN Security Council to move

Superstorm Sandy caused serious water damage to the UN Security Council chamber, forcing it to move to a temporary base for a special meeting on Wednesday, diplomats said.

The 15-nation council hurriedly called a meeting to pass an emergency resolution extending the mandate of the African-UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia for seven days.

The meeting should have been held earlier this week because the mandate was scheduled to end Wednesday. But it was called off because of the hurricane that hit New York on Monday.

The Security Council chamber is in the basement of the UN headquarters overlooking the East River, which spilled over into Manhattan during the storm.

There is "some water damage to the basement," said a UN spokesman, Farhan Haq, but the United Nations gave no other details and reporters were not allowed into the headquarters on Wednesday.

Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the damage to the underground floors is understood to be "quite bad".

The UN headquarters has been closed since the storm but was expected to reopen on Thursday, a spokesman said.

The resolution on the Somalia peacekeeping force was passed in a hastily set up chamber in another part of the headquarters.

New York 9/11 memorial damaged

Superstorm Sandy inflicted "extensive" damage on the National September 11 Memorial, built at the World Trade Center site in New York to honor those killed in the 2001 attacks, an official said Wednesday.

The memorial's chief executive Joe Daniels said the site had suffered "extensive impacts" due to "serious flooding" at the foundation level of the World Trade Center, where a museum is currently under construction. Flooding also hit the visitor center and other facilities.

The site was inaugurated during the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Over 20,000 flights cancelled

Travel chaos from Hurricane Sandy dragged into a fourth day with roads still covered in floodwater and debris, New York's subway still closed and flights cancellations reaching nearly 20,000 Wednesday.

Massive cleanup efforts have restored power and most public services to millions caught in Sandy's destructive path across but authorities warned it could be days or weeks before life fully returns to normal.

Americans take to social media to help post-Sandy

As Americans reeled from the aftermath of superstorm Sandy Wednesday, they took to tweeting, posting and crowdsourcing to mobilize much-needed aid and help those left without power or food.

The storm has devastated New York City and New Jersey, killing dozens of people in several states and swamping miles of coastline, leaving millions without power and some transport services at a standstill.

On Twitter, netizens used the hashtags #sandyaid and #sandyvolunteer to ask for relief or find out where they could help, and crowdsourced maps sprung up online to locate available wifi spots or places where supplies were available.

"In east Williamsburg, how can I help?" @honeybaked_sam tweeted, getting a prompt reply from Brooklyn-based lifetsyle guide @BrooklynExposed, which posted a link to nearby volunteering opportunities.

Jessica Lawrence, managing director of NY Tech Meetup -- a non-profit organization that supports the technology community in New York -- said she had reached out to her 28,000-plus members through Twitter and Facebook.

Oil spill off New York

Clean-up efforts were under way early Thursday after some 300,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the waters off New York City in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, CNN reported. The spill was caused by a rupture in a storage tank at a nearby New Jersey refinery run by Motiva, part-owned by oil giant Shell, it said.

The US Coast Guard was overseeing the cleanup effort, which involved around 100 workers helping to place containment booms around the spill, CNN said. AFP