(VOV) – Super storm Sandy swept inland US eastern coast Tuesday morning (Vietnam time), killing at least 13 people and affecting 1,500 kilometer long swathe. Sandy collided with full-moon high tides to generate 4 meter waves that are likely to result in unprecedented huge damage. Some 300,000 residents of 7 states were without electricity, some tens of thousands of people were evacuated, and thousands of flights were cancelled. Public transport including bus, train, and subway services in major cities like New York, Washington DC, and Philadelphia were frozen. New York Stock Exchange has been closed till Wednesday - the first time this largest capitalization market has been suspended due to natural disaster since 1985. Sandy is forecast to create a 20 billion USD property loss including 7 billion USD loss caused by whirlwind. The super storm was blamed for 67 deaths when sweeping Caribbean.

Nasa released time-lapse animation of Sandy hurrience from space (Photo: Internet)

Sandy also raises fear of pushing the US presidential campaign out of expectation. Mitt Romney, Barrack Obama, and their think-tanks are watching the hurricane’s development closely to see how it will damage the election. If the worst predictions of Sandy are true, the hurricane will be a big challenge to incumbent president Obama.

Nhat Quynh, Huy Hoang, VOV correspondents in Washington