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The weather system Tomas has been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm after lashing Haiti with fierce winds and rain, leaving at least six people dead.

The storm passed over the Turks and Caicos Islands early on Saturday with a speed of 24km per hour.

Meanwhile, Haiti still experienced heavy rains after the storm left and authorities warned of the heightened risk of mudslides. Flooding cut off some parts of the country and traffic has been suspended at the airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Officials warned that the extreme weather could worsen the country's cholera epidemic, which has killed about 500 people and infected thousands others.

"Dangerous landslides and heavy flooding could still worsen the cholera epidemic. Remain vigilant," Rene Preval, the president, said.

Preval said a massive aid-distribution effort was being prepared once "the situation on the roads will permit". The US military has began flights over the country to assess the damage caused by the storm.

Marianna Franco, an aid worker, said the Artibonite river has flooded, "which is bad news because it has been particularly affected by cholera".

Much of Haiti's population of just under 10 million people live in precarious conditions, vulnerable to natural disasters.

Mountainsides have been stripped of trees to be used as fuel, increasing the risk of landslides in wet weather.

Three metres deep

The southern town of Leogane was completely under water, Philippe Joseph, a civil defence official, said.

He said in some parts of the town, the water was three metres deep.

"We are going to have more victims because of the floods and mudslides, but we cannot yet reach the communities most affected," Joseph said.

In Port-au-Prince, Haitians were up to their ankles in water in some of the many camps where about a million people are sheltering after much of the capital was destroyed and 250,000 people were killed in January earthquake.

But the canvas and tarpaulin shelters appeared to have withstood the storm better than expected, thanks to pre-storm preparations, including hastily dug drainage ditches and sandbag barriers.

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