New Orleans begins counting its dead
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-09-05 06:56

CORPSES SEEN AND UNSEEN

He said he has seen 17 bodies floating around in the streets and that many others are inside houses. "You go down some streets and you can smell them, but you can't see them. You know they are in their homes somewhere."

In New Orleans' notoriously poor 9th district, police launched search missions with small speed boats to find both the living and the dead.

The tips of roofs poked out from the water, which bubbled from burst gas mains. Several bodies were seen floating.

Officials said they had assembled facilities capable of handling 1,000 bodies immediately and were expanding them.

Dr. Louis Cataldie, Louisiana's emergency response medical director, declined to speculate on how high the death toll might go. "It's not about numbers," she said. "Each death is enough. This is horrific."

Louisiana's official death toll stood at just 59 on Sunday but officials said they knew it would rise dramatically.

Except for rescue workers and scattered groups of people, streets in the once-vibrant capital of jazz and good times were all but abandoned after the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighboring Texas and other states.

Government and emergency officials insisted it was not the right time to assign blame for the botched rescue efforts, and instead warned of major challenges ahead.

"We're going to have to go house to house in this city. We're going to have to check every single place to find people who may be alive and in need of assistance." Chertoff said.

He said the extremely unsanitary conditions mean emergency services would not allow residents to stay in their homes while flooded areas were being pumped out.

President George W. Bush has, in a rare admission of error, conceded the relief efforts were unacceptable, and this weekend ordered 7,200 extra active-duty troops to the disaster zone.