NEW YORK (Reuters) – The death toll rose to 14 on Saturday after a tour bus carrying sleeping gamblers returning from a Connecticut casino flipped over in the Bronx, shearing off its roof.

The National Transportation and Safety Board was investigating what may be a hit-and-run accident involving a tractor trailer.

The NTSB was trying to determine what caused the bus to swerve on Interstate 95 and topple onto a support pole for a highway sign. The pole sliced the bus in half along the windows, severing the rooftop from the vehicle.

None of the 32 people on board escaped death or injury in the horrific crash, said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

New York City Police said 13 people died at the scene and one other died at the hospital, bringing the death toll to 14. The Fire Department had said earlier that a 15th person had died, but this information was incorrect.

Authorities said several other people with critical injuries and less serious injuries, including the bus driver, were rushed to the hospital.

The crash occurred in the early morning as the bus transported passengers from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut to New York's Chinatown.

Chung Ninh, 59, said he was sleeping on board the bus when the crash occurred. The New York City resident said he escaped out the vehicle's emergency exit and suffered broken glass cuts on his hands and minor injuries to his back that he got from pulling out other passengers.

"Everyone on the bus (was) asleep," he said. "I wake up, I hear yelling and then I hear 'Boom! Boom!' After that, I see nothing."

Ninh said he tried pulling one woman covered in blood from the bus but it appeared she was dead. He then attended to another man dangling upside down from the crash whose arm appeared to be severed.

Commissioner Kelly said it appeared the bus driver swerved on the road to escape a tractor trailer driver on the highway although it was not clear if both vehicles made contact. Police were searching for the tractor trailer driver, who did not stop after the crash, Kelly said.

The bus, chartered by World Wide Tours, was returning passengers to a stop in New York City's Chinatown. Kelly said police officers who speak Mandarin and Cantonese were on the scene to help families of the victims.

Bloomberg said the city would be providing emergency help to the victims' families throughout the day.

"Our and the entire city's prayers, thoughts and sympathies are with the victims and their families and loved ones," he said.

World Wide Tours issued a statement saying they were working with authorities investigating the crash.

"We are cooperating fully with investigators in trying to determine the exact sequence of events," the statement said. "We are a family-owned company and realize words cannot begin to express our sorrow to the families of those who lost their lives or were injured in this tragic accident."

(Reporting by Aman Ali, editing by Barbara Goldberg and Greg McCune)

SAN FRANCISCO/SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Tsunamis triggered by Japan's devastating earthquake that prompted evacuations on the Pacific coast of North and South America caused flooding as far away as Chile Saturday, but damage was limited.

The tsunami lost much of its energy as it moved thousands of miles (km) across the Pacific Ocean, although governments took no chances and ordered large-scale evacuations of coastal areas, ports and refineries.

Despite the power of Japan's biggest-ever quake and the tsunami from which the toll of dead or missing was expected to exceed 1,800, the tsunami waves were relatively benign as they rolled into the Americas, causing only isolated flooding, and fears of a catastrophe proved unfounded.

The tsunami swept past Chile's remote Easter Island in the South Pacific, generating swells but no major waves. Wooden chalets on Chile's northern coast were damaged and some small boats were swept away when the tsunamis intensified, local television footage showed.

The sea later flooded as far as 330 feet inland in Dichato and Talcahuano, 310 miles south of the capital, Santiago, and near the epicenter of the massive 8.8 magnitude quake that struck Chile in February 2010.

The government stopped residents from returning to their coastal homes until Saturday afternoon as a precaution.

But the damage appeared relatively mild and officials on Saturday reopened copper exporting ports that had been closed as a precautionary measure ahead of the tsunami and recalled large ships sent out to sea to avoid damage.

"The alert is now over. People can be confident the danger is over," said government spokeswoman Ena Von Baer, adding fishermen should remain cautious because of swells and currents.

Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, a wildlife sanctuary and popular tourist spot, suffered some damage to infrastructure, and several harbors in California were hit.

Frank Boyle, president of Peru's port authority, said the northern port of Paita and the southern ports of Ilo and Matarani were reopened.

Peru's key central mining port of El Callao remained closed, as did the southern port of Pisco, where Reposl exports natural gas. Another mining terminal used by Shougang Hierro Peru was still out of action.

"The situation's going to be evaluated and on the basis of that, we'll gradually be reopening the ports," Boyle told Reuters.

U.S. HARBORS SMASHED

About 35 boats and most of the harbor docks were damaged in Crescent City near the California border with Oregon, where waves were more than 6 feet. Santa Cruz south of San Francisco sustained about $2 million in damages to docks and vessels, emergency management officials said.

A 25-year-old man was swept out to sea while standing on a sandbar at the mouth of the Klamath River in California.

The port of Brookings-Harbor, the busiest recreation port on the Oregon coast, was largely destroyed, said operations manager Chris Cantwell. "Right now we are in the middle of a big mess," he said. "The surge pulled some (boats) out to sea, about a dozen sank and we've got boats everywhere sitting on top of one another and all over the place."

In Hawaii, 3,800 miles from Japan, the Big Island of Hawaii sustained the most damage, with about 12 homes destroyed or badly damaged, a civil defense official said. Water rushed over the sea wall in Kailua-Kona on the big island, flooding a hotel and destroying some businesses. There was about $1 million damage to the Kailua-Kona pier.

On the island of Oahu, which was hit by four tsunami waves, a boat harbor suffered about $1 million in infrastructure damage when docks were torn away with vessels still attached.

Ecuador took extreme precautions after President Rafael Correa declared a state of emergency across the Andean nation on national television and urged residents to move inland.

Oil firm Petroecuador also halted production, but navy officials said Friday night the risk of danger had passed.

Mexico reopened its Pacific ports Saturday afternoon, including its oil-exporting port of Salinas Cruz in the southern state of Oaxaca, its main container port, Manzanillo, and the cruise ship harbor at Los Cabos, the government said.

Mexican officials said high waves had hit the northwestern Pacific coast but there were no reports of damage.

(Reporting by Reuters correspondents in the Americas; Writing by Ross Colvin and Robin Emmott; Editing by Simon Gardner and Peter Cooney)

HAVANA (Reuters) – U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for crimes against the Cuban state, state-run television reported on Saturday, in the latest setback to relations between two Cold War enemies.

A panel of judges reached the decision after a two-day trial last week in which prosecutors said Gross was involved in what the government described as a U.S.-funded "subversive project" to "topple the Revolution."

The case was the latest flare-up in U.S.-Cuba relations that have been sour since a 1959 revolution put Fidel Castro in power.

Gross, 61, was convicted of "acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state" for working to set up clandestine Internet networks for Cuba dissidents using "sophisticated" communications technology.

Prosecutors sought a 20-year sentence for the longtime development worker, who has been jailed since his arrest in Havana on December 3, 2009.

The United States, which has contended from the beginning that Gross was only setting up Internet access for the island's small Jewish community, reacted angrily to the decision.

"Today's sentencing adds another injustice to Alan Gross's ordeal. He has already spent too many days in detention and should not spend one more," White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

"We urge the immediate release of Mr. Gross so that he can return home to his wife and family," Vietor said.

U.S. spokeswoman Gloria Berbena at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana said Gross was "in Cuba helping average Cubans connect with the rest of the world. It is appalling that the Cuban government seeks to criminalize what most of the world deems normal, in this case access to information and technology."

Gross's attorney Peter Kahn said the Gross family was "devastated by the verdict and harsh sentence announced today."

"Alan and his family have paid an enormous personal price in the long-standing political feud between Cuba and the United States. We will continue to work with Alan's Cuban attorney in exploring any and all options available to him, including the possibility of an appeal," he said in a statement.

Few details of the trial have been released, but the television report said Gross told the court he had been "used and manipulated" by DAI, the Maryland-based company that had contracted him to work in Cuba.

DAI had a contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development to conduct projects aimed at promoting political change on the Caribbean island.

Gross accused DAI of having put him in danger and his current situation of "ruining the life and economy of his family," Cuba said in a statement last week at the end of the trial.

His detention brought to a halt a mild warming in U.S.-Cuba relations after U.S. President Barack Obama took office and the United States has said it will not undertake any more initiatives with the Caribbean island until Gross is free.

MANY TARGETS

Cuban prosecutors said Gross targeted young people, universities, religious groups, women's groups, racial groups and cultural types.

Gross worked in Cuba on a tourist visa under a controversial U.S. AID program aimed at promoting political change on the island.

The programs have been criticized in the United States for doing little more than provoking the Cuban government.

Cuba views the activities as part of the longstanding U.S. efforts to subvert the government and has made them illegal.

Although Internet access is limited in Cuba, a recently leaked video of a Ministry of Interior briefing showed an expert saying the Internet was the latest front in the two countries' long ideological war.

Some observers think a political solution will be reached that will allow Gross to go free soon. But others believe Cuba has little interest in improving relations with the U.S., which has imposed a trade embargo against the island since 1962.

Judy Gross, who attended the trial, has pleaded for her husband's release on humanitarian grounds because their 26-year-old daughter and Alan Gross's 88-year-old mother both have cancer.

She said Gross, who looked gaunt when he was seen going into the trial, has lost 90 pounds (41 kg) in prison and has physical ailments.

Cuba was expected to use the trial to put a spotlight on U.S. activities on the island, but instead aired two television programs showing what it portrayed as U.S. treachery on the island.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu and Vicki Allen)