Hurricane Tomas dumps rain on vulnerable Haiti

Hurricane Tomas has soaked crowded Haitian earthquake survivors' camps as the re-strengthened storm headed north between Cuba and Haiti amid fears of flooding and landslides.

One person died overnight trying to cross a river in the Grande-Anse region southwest of the capital and some flooding was reported in the south coast town of Les Cayes.

In the capital Port-au-Prince, still scarred from a devastating earthquake in January, hundreds of thousands of homeless quake survivors spent the night under rain-drenched tent and tarpaulin shelters in muddy encampments. The quake killed more than a quarter of a million people.

With the passage of Tomas, the United Nations and relief agencies have gone on maximum alert to prepare for the risk of another humanitarian catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, which is already reeling from a deadly cholera epidemic on top of the widespread quake destruction.

But there were no immediate reports of serious storm destruction or major casualties.