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A huge fire that erupted as superstorm Sandy ripped
through New York City with near-hurricane force winds has destroyed
dozens of homes in one of the city's most remote neighbourhoods.
Breezy
Point, in the borough of Queens, had been extensively flooded by
Sandy's record storm surge, and firefighters were hampered in their
efforts to bring the blaze under control.
A spokesman for the New
York Fire Department said no casualties were immediately reported and
the cause of the fire was under investigation.
A tweet from the FDNY's official Twitter feed said 50 or more homes were destroyed in the fire.
The blaze was still not under control by 5am (local time), the department said.
Local
television showed firefighters wading through waist-deep water to get
to the massive fire. Some used inflatable boats to reach it.
Breezy
Point is a private beach community in the Rockaway area, a narrow spit
of land barely above sea level that thrusts into the Atlantic Ocean
south west of John F Kennedy International Airport.
It was one of a
number of New York City neighbourhoods that had been under a mandatory
evacuation order as Sandy, one of the biggest storms to hit the United
States, approached from the south-east.
According to a report from
WABC-TV in New York, dozens of residents chose not to obey the
evacuation order and as many as 40 had to be rescued by firefighters
from homes in the neighbourhood as the fire approached, driven by 112kph
winds.
The FDNY spokesman could not verify the television station's report of rescues.
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