Alarming predictions of as many as 10,000 dead in New Orleans may have been greatly exaggerated, with authorities saying that the first street-by-street sweep of the swamped city revealed far fewer corpses than feared.

AUTHORITIES yesterday said their first systematic sweep of New Orleans found far fewer bodies than expected, suggesting that Hurricane Katrina's death toll may not be the catastrophic 10,000 feared.

US President George Bush hopes his tour of Gulf Coast communities battered by Hurricane Katrina will boost the spirits of increasingly desperate storm victims and their tired rescuers.