Authorities have set up a huge morgue north of New Orleans for the bodies being found as floodwaters begin to drain from the hurricane-ravaged city.
A spokesman for the Louisiana state Health and Hospitals Department Bob Johannessen says the morgue, a massive warehouse the town of Saint Gabriel, can hold several thousand bodies if necessary.
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has said the city's death toll could reach 10-thousand people, though he and other officials say it is still too soon to project a final number.
Rescue teams continue to find corpses across New Orleans as they search for survivors of last week's storm.
Engineers have begun the huge task of pumping floodwaters out of the city, a day after completing repairs to the main levee that burst during the hurricane and flooded New Orleans, which sits below sea-level.
Hurricane Katrina also destroyed vast areas in the nearby state of Mississippi. The storm has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Many are in temporary shelters in other states.
Relief efforts are under way to help victims rebuild their lives and find lost loved ones.
