Superstorm Sandy live tweets: More than 60 mn people affected

New York: Hurricane Sandy, the monster storm bearing down on the East Coast, strengthened on Monday after hundreds of thousands moved to higher ground, public transport shut down and the stock market suffered its first weather-related closure in 27 years.

About 50 million people from the Mid-Atlantic to Canada were in the path of the nearly 1,000-mile-wide (1,600-km-wide) storm, which forecasters said could be the largest to hit the mainland in US history. It was expected to topple trees, damage buildings, cause power outages and trigger heavy flooding.

Sandy killed 66 people in the Caribbean before pounding US coastal areas with rain and triggering snow falls at higher elevations. Forecasting services indicated early Monday that the storm would strike the New Jersey shore near Atlantic City on Monday night.

The superstorm, one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States, roared ashore with fierce winds and heavy rain.

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