New York -
The number of Hurricane Sandy-related deaths stood at 90 on Friday with the discovery of the bodies of two boys who were swept away by the super storm in Staten Island, a borough of New York, reports said.
The reports said the bodies of Connor and Brandon Moore, respectively 4 and 2, were discovered late Thursday in a marshland not far from their home in Staten Island.
“It's a shock for everybody right now,” the New York Post quoted a friend of the Moore family as saying. The two boys were separated from their mother and swept away by surging waters when the SUV driven by her became stuck in the storm.
Consolidated Edison, the main power provider for New York, said an estimated 226,000 people in Lower Manhattan remained out of power on Friday and announced that the blackout may end this weekend.
Another 164,000 customers in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx would remain without power until next week. The Westchester County in upstate New York has 140 000 customers without power.
Lower Manhattan was blacked out within 30 minutes after Hurricane Sandy made landfall Monday night when transformers at the main Con Edison plant in the city exploded under surging salt water in the East River. Power had been restored to some areas in the city of more than 8.5 million people. The Upper East Side and other parts of northern in Manhattan was spared in the blackout.
Millions of people remained without power in New Jersey and Connecticut.
New York authorities announced that international airports in the region, including Liberty International Airport in Newark and JFK International Airport in New York, became fully operational. - Sapa-dpa