Hurricane Katrina has killed at least 55 people in the United States since slamming into the Gulf Coast on Monday. The price of oil jumped to above 68 US dollars in the aftermath of the disaster, local media reported Tuesday.

Katrina killed 50 people in the Harrison County, Mississippi. Most of the victims died at an apartment complex in Biloxi, the county emergency operations center was quoted as saying.

Three others were killed in Mississippi by falling trees knocked down by the devastating winds blowing at a speed of 233 kmper hour.

In Alabama, two people lost their lives in a traffic accident.

The storm bore down on the Gulf Coast earlier Monday, submerging neighborhoods up to the rooflines in New Orleans, Louisiana, hurling boats onto land and sending water pouring into a strip of casinos along the Mississippi beachfront.

As it continued to move inland, Hurricane Katrina appeared to have spared the city of New Orleans, especially vulnerable because it sits below sea level.

However, some 40,000 homes just east of New Orleans were destroyed.

The US government on Monday declared the two Gulf Coast states of Louisiana and Mississippi to be major disaster areas, as Katrina plowed into the region causing extensive damage.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan told media that US President George W. Bush approved the major disaster declarations while aboard Air Force One en route to Arizona. The declaration allows for the use of federal money to help respond to the hurricane, one of the strongest storms ever to threaten the country.

As traders waited nervously for news of damage in the wake of Katrina, oil prices surged to a record-high at 70.80 a barrel early Monday, before retreating slightly as Katrina eased toward New Orleans. US crude ended the day Tuesday at 68.40 dollars a barrel.

More than 90 percent of the oil output from the Gulf of Mexico was shutdown in precautionary measures, according to the US Minerals Management Service. Experts have begun to assess the extent of Katrina's destruction, and predict that Katrina could become the most costly storm in US history.

Source: Xinhua