Supplies airlifted to towns cut-off by Irene floods

More than 200 roads are blocked or washed away in Vermont, hampering rescue efforts to 13 towns.

The hurricane killed 44 people across 13 US states, according to the Associated Press, and caused billions of dollars' damage.

About half of the 6.7 million people on the east coast who lost power still have no electricity.

Vermont is reeling from its worst floods since 1927, and officials warned some rivers and creeks there had yet to crest.

Airlines said it would be days before the thousands of passengers stranded by Irene find their way home.

The Amtrak railway service was suspended on Tuesday between Philadelphia and New York because of flooding.

The total economic damage caused by the storm could reach $20bn (€13.8 billion), Standard & Poor's senior economist Beth Ann Bovino told Reuters news agency.

Irene hit North Carolina on Saturday as a hurricane, before moving north over major east coast cities, and weakening to a tropical storm over New England.

Even though it dissipated as it reached eastern Canada, Irene still caused chaos there. Crews are trying to clean up debris and restore electricity to thousands of householders.

Hopes were fading of finding alive a motorist who was swept away on a flooded road in Yamaska, Quebec.

CBC reported, meanwhile, that an 81-year-old man who left his cabin in Quebec during the storm was found dead just over a mile away.

Five people also died in the Dominican Republic and Haiti as Irene blew through the Caribbean.