State and federal investigators were expected to launch an investigation Monday at a power plant where an explosion killed at least five people and injured more than two dozen, authorities said.

Search-and-rescue teams had scoured most of the blast site by about 2:30 a.m. ET Monday, according to Deputy Fire Marshal Al Santostefano. One small portion was deemed unsafe to enter, he said.

Sunday’s blast took place at the under-construction Kleen Power Plant, while plant workers purged a natural gas pipeline, Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano said.

Kleen Energy Systems said on its Web site that the plan is gas-fired but can use other fuels. It was expected to produce 620 megawatts of power and would be one of the largest power plants in New England.

Residents up to 20 miles away reported hearing the blast about 11:19 a.m. ET.

It’s unknown how many people were working in the plant, which was about 95 percent complete. Multiple contractors are involved in the project, complicating efforts to account for everyone onsite, Giuliano said.

Santostefano said that no one had come forward with names of missing people and that search-and-rescue dogs had not detected signs of life beneath the rubble.

The plant had been expected to go online this summer, Giuliano said.

Santostefano initially said 50 to 60 people, most of them construction workers, were working at the time. He said he thought most of those had escaped the blast.

Middlesex Hospital in Middletown received 26 patients from the incident, its Web site said. One seriously injured patient was flown to Hartford Hospital and another was transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital. Two of the injured were admitted to Middlesex Hospital, while the remaining 22 weren’t expected to spend the night.

Emergency crews were delayed entering the plant, because it was on fire and the natural gas had to be turned off, Santostefano said.

People miles away reported hearing or feeling the blast.

“It felt like the house was shaking,” said Peter Moore of Durham, about 10 miles away.

Moore said his mother, who lives in Woodbridge, about 20 miles from the plant, said it “sounded like someone pounded on the back door a couple of times.”

“It was almost like an earthquake,” nearby resident Lynn Townsend told CNN affiliate WTNH. She said she heard the explosion and went outside to see “a very big, bright orange flame” between the plant’s two smokestacks, and dialed 911.

“It really shook the house,” she said. “Everybody was scared. The kids started to cry.”

Romantic drama Dear John has knocked sci-fi epic Avatar off the top spot in the North American box office chart.

The film, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried as lovers whose romance is curtailed by the 11 September attacks, took $32.4m (£20.6m).

James Cameron’s Avatar took $23.6m (£15.2m) after seven weeks at number one, raising its domestic total to $630.1m (£405m).

John Travolta film From Paris With Love opened at three with $8.1m (£5.2m).

Dear John, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, had not been expected to surpass the other-worldly epic but performed considerably better than its estimated box office figure of $20m (£12.8m).

It also had a record opening for Super Bowl weekend - traditionally a quiet weekend in cinemas - topping the $31.1m (£20m) debut for Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert in 2008.

Travolta’s latest offering was the actor’s worst opening weekend since misfiring lottery comedy Lucky Numbers took $4.5m (£2.9m) in October 2000.

Mel Gibson thriller Edge of Darkness and comedy Tooth Fairy starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson completed the top five.

Another new entry in the top 10 was Oscar-nominated Crazy Heart at eight, starring Jeff Bridges as a hard-living country music singer.

Meanwhile, Avatar has become the most successful film of all time at the UK box office.

UK cinemas have sold £71.6m of tickets for the sci-fi parable since it premiered on 10 December, surpassing the £69.17m Mamma Mia! took in 2008.

Parts of the eastern United States remain largely paralysed for a third day after some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades.

Transport links in Washington DC and nearby states have been severely disrupted and hundreds of thousands of people are still without power.

Federal government offices and most schools are shut after the authorities advised people to stay indoors.

Weather forecasts are warning of fresh blizzards due on Tuesday.

The storm has disrupted transport from West Virginia to southern New Jersey.

Some parts of Washington experienced up to 32in (81cm) of snow, one of the heaviest snowfalls in decades.

A record 3ft (91cm) of snow fell in Maryland.

Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland have declared emergencies, allowing them to mobilise the National Guard to help cope with the wintry onslaught.

Electricity was cut to at least 300,000 homes as the snow felled trees, and cut power lines across the region. Emergency workers are struggling to restore power.

Another 250,000 customers were hit by blackouts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the New York Times reported.

Pepco electric company said its workers were scrambling to restore power, but warned it could be a few days before everyone’s supply was restored.

“We have a lot of scattered outages and the road conditions are not really working with us,” spokesman Andre Francis told AFP news agency.

‘Snowmageddon’

The massive storm brought the nation’s capital to a virtual standstill.

All flights were cancelled out of Washington’s national airport, along with most flights out of Dulles International in Virginia.

The 18in (46cm) recorded at Reagan National Airport was the fourth-highest snow total for the city. At Dulles Airport, outside Washington, the record was shattered with 32in (81cm).

Even President Barack Obama fell victim to “snowmageddon”, as locals - including the president - have dubbed it.

A tree limb snapped and fell on to a vehicle in Mr Obama’s motorcade, but no-one was injured.

All across the region, hundreds of car accidents were reported, but only two fatalities - a father and son who died while helping another motorist in Virginia.

US national rail service Amtrak cancelled a number of trains between New York and Washington, and also between Washington and some southern destinations.

Snowball fight

The latest storm comes less than two months after a December storm dumped more than 16in (41cm) of snow in Washington.

The Washington Metro was operating only on underground lines, and bus services were cancelled.

The usually traffic-heavy roads of the capital were deserted, and the city’s famous sites and monuments were covered with snow.

Debi Adkins, who lives just outside the city of Baltimore, told the BBC: “I’m not going anywhere - I couldn’t if I wanted to. You just can’t get your cars out. The front door of the building I live in is closed shut, so I just can’t get out.”

Some sightseers ventured out in thigh-deep snow in the National Mall park, or went cross-country skiing down empty boulevards.

Others took part in a huge snowball fight at Washington’s DuPont Circle, organised via Facebook and Twitter.

Iran will inform the U.N. nuclear watchdog that it will begin enriching uranium to 20 percent on Tuesday, the country’s atomic chief said.

Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, said his country handed over a letter to the agency stating its intention, Press TV reported.

Uranium enriched to 20 percent is considered “highly enriched” uranium, the U.S. National Research Council says on its Web site. That level of enrichment is the threshold for uranium capable of setting off a nuclear reaction.

Iran insists its activities are for civilian purposes only. “The new fuel, to be produced at the Natanz enrichment plant, will supply the Tehran research reactor which produces medical isotopes,” the State TV report said.

A representative of the IAEA said Monday that the agency could not say whether Iran had yet notified it of any plans regarding enriched uranium.

Ali Akbar Salehi, director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told Arabic-language Al-Alam television network Sunday night that the enrichment will start Tuesday “in the presence of inspectors and observers from the IAEA,” Iranian media reported.

Meanwhile, Salehi said Iran has a final test to run before launching its first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Monday. A Russian contractor is involved in the construction of the facility.

“There remains just one test named ‘Warm Water Test’ before we can launch the power plant,” he told Fars.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered Salehi on Sunday to boost enrichment of the country’s uranium to 20 percent, in the latest challenge to Western powers trying to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

The move is likely to shake up skeptics as the West tries to press Iran to send its low-enriched uranium abroad, to be processed and then returned for use at the medical research reactor in Tehran.

“The doors for interaction are still open,” Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony marking Iran’s laser technology achievements. “We had told them (the West) to come and have a swap, although we could produce the 20 percent-enriched fuel ourselves.”

The Islamic republic had until the end of 2009 to accept the deal offered by the “P5 plus 1,” which consists of permanent U.N. Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany. Instead, Iran came back with a counteroffer, giving the West until the end of January to accept its own proposal. The details of that offer were not disclosed.

Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the country would officially declare that it would produce enriched fuel at 20 percent if the West missed the deadline. Mottaki had said in December that the country was ready to send about 400 kilograms of the 3.5 percent-enriched uranium in Iran’s Kish Island and receive 20 percent-enriched fuel — one-third of the 1,200 kilograms spelled out in the P5 plus 1 deal.

Iran’s leadership has signaled concerns about whether the West would return the enriched fuel.

In the speech broadcast Sunday on Iranian state television, Ahmadinejad added that Salehi has been told “the door to the exchange of fuel is open, but they must start the production of 20 percent-enriched fuel.”

And on Friday, Mottaki said he thought a solution would be reached to export uranium.

“The amount of uranium is negotiable, but I am confident that a solution can be found,” Mottaki said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday, “If the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work, but we must all work together.” Gates spoke at a news conference in Italy with his Italian counterpart, Ignazio La Russa.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee said Sunday that the panel thought the Ahmadinejad administration was sending mixed messages about conducting domestic enrichment while still remaining open to fuel exchange. Most of the panel wants to enrich uranium domestically.

“What we must be mindful of when we speak of the exchange [of nuclear fuel] is, the positions must be in line with the frameworks that are acceptable by the system” and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spokesman Kazem Jalali told Iran’s semi-official Mehr News.

“We never saw any sincerity from the 5 plus 1 countries that would make us change our experiences vis-a-vis the exchange of fuel,” he said. “It seems that the positions announced by the administration regarding this matter were uncoordinated words.”

He said lawmakers had established a two-month deadline for enrichment and “we all supported it.”

Sunday’s new enriched uranium plans fall within the 10-day period marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah.

Celebrations commemorating the overthrow began last week and will culminate on February 11.

Australia’s immigration minister, Chris Evans, has announced policy changes to attract more highly skilled workers.

He criticised the current trend for new arrivals to sign up for cookery or hairdressing courses to gain residency.

Mr Evans said Australia would abolish the current list of 106 skills in demand and review a points test used to assess migrants.

His comments were welcomed by the mining sector, which is struggling to meet China’s demand for raw materials.

“We had tens of thousands of students studying cookery and accounting and hairdressing because that was on the list and that got them through to permanent residency,” Mr Evans told Australian radio.

Catering to high-end

“We want to make sure we’re getting the high-end applicants,” the immigration minister said.

He said the new immigration intake would focus on health workers, including more doctors and nurses, as well as engineering and mining.

Australia’s mining sector is struggling to find tens of thousands of staff to support major firms like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto as they expand to meet China’s growing demand for resources.

“We need the people on the job now and the demand going forward will be even greater as these projects get off the ground,” Australian Mines and Metals Association Chief Executive Steve Knott told Australian radio.

“The boom in the resources sector, particularly in the north-west of Western Australia, has been quite strong so we welcome the decision that has been made,” he said.

Fraud reports

Many overseas students from Asia seek residency in Australia after completing vocational courses at private colleges, usually in hairdressing and catering.

Education experts have been calling on Australia to overhaul its foreign student sector after reports of fraud and that students were using the system purely to gain residency in Australia.

Last year 170,000 people applied to live and work permanently in Australia as skilled migrants, but there were just 108,100 places available, he said.

Mr Evans added that all lower-skilled applications lodged before 1 September 2007, when English language skills and work experience requirements were easier, would have their applications withdrawn and application fees worth A$14 million ($12.15 million) refunded.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that 4.4 million people in Australia were born overseas.