Truce frays as Obama, Romney navigate Sandy aftermath

WASHINGTON (AFP) - United States President Barack Obama planned to tour superstorm Sandy's debris field and Mitt Romney plotted a return to campaigning on Tuesday, as high-stakes politics stirred back to life a week from election day.

During an unprecedented 24-hour truce so close to a US presidential vote, the campaigns assessed the storm aftermath and how to squeeze the best use from fast dwindling days left in a race either man could still win.

The storm - which killed at least 35 people in the United States and Canada, swamped homes on the eastern seaboard and sent floodwaters gushing through lower Manhattan - muffled campaign trail rhetoric and jumbled political battle lines.

Mr Obama was in presidential mode Tuesday, firing off orders to government emergency chiefs, telling victims that America found their plight "heartbreaking" and affecting not to notice the looming Nov 6 poll.