Hurricane Sandy leaves 26 dead as millions in US Northeast go without power, transport

Hurricane Sandy has left a trail of destruction across vast swaths of US Northeast as high winds and floods churned inland, battering homes, offices and cutting off electricity supplies in mid-Atlantic states, media repots said.

At least 26 people were reported dead in seven states as the storm toppled trees and sparked fires in several areas, authorities said. Storms and floods have left roughly six million people, including many in a large swath of Manhattan, without electricity.

In New York, at least five deaths in the state were caused by the storm.

Officials for Pennsylvania said two deaths a boy in Susquehanna County and a 62-year-old man in Berks County, were missing.

In North Carolina, a man was killed when his vehicle hit a tree that was crashing down in Surry County, said an official with the state emergency offices.

Power utility Consolidated Edison said that as of 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 634,000 customers in New York City and Westchester were without power. The company had shut out power fearing damage to electrical equipment in sections of Lower Manhattan on Monday evening.

But an unplanned failure at 8;30 pm, probably caused by flooding in substations, knocked out power to most of Manhattan below Midtown, affecting about 250,000 customers. Later, an explosion at a Con Ed substation on East 14th Street knocked out power to another 250,000 customers.