Bush takes blame for govt's failures

Speaking a day after getting his first close-up view of Katrina's catastrophic wake in New Orleans, Bush said the hurricane "exposed serious problems in our response capabilities at all levels of government."

"To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," he told reporters in Washington.

"I want to know what went right and what went wrong," he added, a day after the head of the US federal disaster agency, Michael Brown, resigned amid a torrent of criticism of the agency's handling of the disaster.

Facing his worst poll numbers ever and growing skepticism over his ability to manage a crisis, Bush was to make a speech Thursday outlining his plans for the stricken region, encompassing parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

But as the floodwaters receded in storm-stricken New Orleans, a shattered landscape of ruined homes, wrecked cars and a thick foul-smelling sludge emerged, revealing the mounting human cost of the disaster.

The death toll in Louisiana leapt by more than 100 Tuesday, taking the total number of those confirmed dead across the Gulf Coast region to 657.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco angrily accused the government of not moving fast enough to recover bodies.

"No one, it seems, even those at the highest level, seems to be able to break through the bureaucracy... I'm angry and outraged," Blanco said.

"In death as in life, our people have deserved better than they have received," she said.

The owners of one New Orleans nursing home, where the bodies of 34 people were found drowned in one of the more grisly discoveries after the disaster, were charged with negligent homicide, officials said.

The state was also investigating the deaths of 45 people at another hospital, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said.