Hurricane Matthew has gone from the US, but the disaster its rains unleashed will be felt throughout the week as rivers across eastern North Carolina rise to levels unseen since Hurricane Floyd struck in 1999.

A fast-weakening Hurricane Matthew which has been blamed for at least four deaths in the US, all in Florida, continued its march along the Atlantic coast.

The leading edge of dangerous Hurricane Matthew has drenched Haiti, flooding streets and sending people scrambling to emergency shelters as the Category 4 storm threatened to batter the Caribbean's poorest nation.

One of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history weakened a little on Saturday as it roared across the Caribbean on a course that still puts Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba in the path of potentially-devastating winds and rain.

A HILLSIDE collapsed on hundreds of sleeping residents yesterday in a rural Mexican community drenched for days by a hurricane and a tropical storm, killing at least seven and leaving at least 100 missing, disaster officials said.