Number of Florence storm deaths in US now stands at 11

Hurricane Florence, which has weakened to a tropical storm category, claimed the lives of 11 people in US states of North and South Carolina, ABC reported on Saturday.

Earlier reports put the death toll at eight. Among the new victims are a mother and a child, who were crushed by a fallen tree in Wilmington, North Carolina, and a 81-year-old man, who fell and received a fatal injury while packing to evacuate in Wayne County, North Carolina.

In a separate development, police arrested five people in North Carolina’s Wilmington County on Saturday for an attempt to loot a shop during the disaster, local police said.

"Moments ago officers arrested five individuals who broke in and looted the Dollar General," the Wilmington police department said in its Twitter account. "Charges are pending and those details will be released as they become available."

The authorities in Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and the country’s capital Washington have earlier declared a state of emergency over the disaster. The storm has already led to flooding in North and South Carolina. Earlier, evacuation was ordered in the two states’ coastal regions with the population of more than 1.5 million people. More than a thousand of flights, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, were cancelled along the US East Coast.