UN HQ in New York suffers minor damage from Sandy

The United Nations said Thursday that Superstorm Sandy caused some minor damage to its New York headquarters and knocked out the cooling system for the computer servers and ventilation for the U.N. Secretariat. The Secretariat is located on Manhattan's east side and stretches for six blocks along the East River, which overflowed its banks due to 4-meter waves caused by the storm. The cooling system is located on the third-level basement, which flooded after the East River was breached, forcing the United Nations to cutoff power and transfer its data to a backup center in New Jersey, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Management Yukio Takasu told reporters. The U.N.'s printing room was also destroyed in the flooding. The gale force winds damaged the delegates' entrance to the General Assembly (GA) Hall and tore a plastic cover over the GA Hall roof. There was also a minor fire in the third-level basement, when a switchboard short-circuited, the U.N. Undersecretary-General for Safety and Security Gregory Starr said, but it was quickly brought under control. The Security Council met Wednesday in a conference room in an adjacent building on U.N. grounds, as it was unable to meet in its usual location in the Secretariat building due to poor ventilation caused by the disabled cooler room. Thursday was the first day back to work for U.N. staff in New York this week after the storm caused a three-day shutdown of U.N. buildings in the city