The mounting body count from Hurricane Katrina in and around the ravaged city of New Orleans on Monday raised the total number of confirmed victims of the huge storm to over 500.
Louisiana state officials said Katrina’s toll in the New Orleans region had risen to 279 from 197. The spike in confirmed deaths comes as the authorities drain the city of floodwaters sparked by the August 29 storm.
Another 214 people have been confirmed dead in the stricken state of Mississippi, 14 in Florida and two in Alabama, authorities in those states have said, bringing Katrina’s total toll to 509.
Despite the rising number of deaths, the hundreds confirmed killed so far by the storm fall well short of initial predictions that up to 10,000 may have been claimed by the storm’s winds and floods.
