'Chaos' after US hurricane

Overwhelmed authorities struggled to evacuate survivors trapped in the rising floodwaters of New Orleans and to control looters who ran wild yesterday amid the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina.

Engineers tried to plug a leaking levee that was allowing lake water to pour into the city two days after the storm struck the US Gulf Coast. People left stranded were running out of food and water and growing desperate as authorities tried to determine how to get them out and where to take them.

"We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Katrina's death toll was more than 100 and expected to rise much higher, but efforts to count the dead took a back seat to assisting survivors.

The US Energy Department said it would release oil from a strategic reserve to offset losses in the Gulf of Mexico, where the storm had shut down production. US crude-oil prices eased below $70 per barrel on the news, but gasoline futures prices jumped by about 20 cents per gallon, to $2.67.

Katrina struck Louisiana on Monday with 224 kph winds, while slamming into the coasts of neighbouring Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida.

A 10-metre storm surge in Mississippi wiped away 90 per cent of the buildings along the coast at Biloxi and Gulfport.

At least 110 people died in Mississippi. "We're just estimating, but the number could go double or triple from what we're talking about now," a civil defence director told the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion Ledger.

Biloxi, Mississippi, spokesman Vincent Creel earlier said the death toll would be "in the hundreds."

US Senator Mary Landrieu told reporters she had heard at least 50 to 100 people were dead in New Orleans. Louisiana officials said 3,000 people had been rescued, but many more waited to be picked up in boats that cruised flooded streets or helicopters that buzzed overhead.

"I'm alive. I'm alive," shouted a joyous woman as she was ferried from a home nearly swallowed by the flood.

Rescue teams busy saving people left bodies floating in the high waters.

Looting erupted around the city as people broke into stores to grab supplies, television sets, jewellery, clothes and computers.

"It's a lot of chaos right now," Louisiana state police Director H.L. Whitehorn said.

New Orleans at first appeared to have received a glancing blow from Katrina, but the raging waters of Lake Pontchartrain tore holes in the levees that protect the low-lying city, then slowly filled it up.

Mayor Ray Nagin said 80 per cent of the city was submerged in water that was in places six metres deep.

Attempts failed on Tuesday to plug a 60-metre gap in the levee system with 1,360-kilogramme sandbags and concrete barriers, but officials said they would keep trying.

"The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole," Ms Blanco said.

The lake should return to normal levels within about 36 hours and the water now flooding New Orleans would begin to drain, said US Army Corps of Engineers senior project engineer Al Naomi.

He said the historic French Quarter, the main draw for New Orleans' huge tourist industry, should escape with only minor flooding because it sits 1.5 metres above sea level.

But Mr Nagin estimated it would be 12 to 16 weeks before residents could return. The floods knocked out electricity, contaminated the water supply and cut off most highway routes into New Orleans.