Hurricane Hanna slows down

Hurricane Hanna reduced to tropical storm strength after hitting the Bahamas today but forecasters said it still posed a threat.

The storm snapped trees and kept Providenciales, capital of the Turks and Caicos islands, without power.

Hanna’s maximum sustained winds slipped to 70 mph, but the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said it could regain hurricane strength within a day and hit the US coast by Friday or Saturday.

Forecasters said the storm could land anywhere from Florida to North Carolina - and projections indicated it could then spread rain into the Northeast even after it weakens.

Hanna’s movement has been agonisingly slow for people in the tourist magnets of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, directly under its winds.

Meanwhile newly-formed Tropical Storm Ike was cruising westward across the Atlantic and was projected to near the Bahamas by Sunday.

More than 8,000 Haitians remain homeless in the wake of Hurricane Gustav, which was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved over central Louisiana yesterday.

At least 95 people have been killed by storms in Haiti in the last month alone.