MIAMI - TROPICAL Storm Hanna hit the US states of South and North Carolina with full force early on Saturday, prompting coastal residents to seek refuge inland and authorities to declare a state of emergency.

Meanwhile, the even more powerful Hurricane Ike threatened Caribbean islands and the United States.

Hanna, which has already left dozens dead in Haiti, triggered emergency operations along more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of the North and South Carolina coastline.

The governors of North Carolina and Virginia declared states of emergency.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford called for people to evacuate two counties.

As it hit dry land, the stormed packed sustained winds near 110 kilometers (70 miles) per hour, according to the NHC.

'Weakening is expected after landfall, and Hanna should become an extratropical storm by early Sunday,' the center said in its latest advisory.

Several southern US states have endured Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Gustav in recent weeks and officials expressed concern that people along the coast were not taking Hanna seriously.

'The response is not what we would want it to be,' Sam Hodge, emergency manager for Georgetown, South Carolina, told CBS News.

'We feel there should be more people evacuating.' Authorities also kept a wary eye on the more formidable Hurricane Ike out in the Atlantic.

Ike was forecast to spare Haiti while the Caribbean nation struggled to recover from devastating flooding from Hanna which killed 163 people.

'At least for now' Haiti looks likely to be spared yet another hit, NHC spokeswoman Karina Castillo said.

But the poorest country in the Americas is still reeling from the devastation inflicted by a succession of three storms in as many weeks that killed more than 250 people in total.

The country's third largest city Gonaives remained largely under water following Hanna, and Senator Yuri Latortue who represents the city called the situation 'catastrophic'.

'I know perfectly well that the hurricane season has hit our entire country, but the situation in Gonaives is truly special, because now some 200,000 people there haven't eaten in three days,' Mr Latortue said.

A lifeline was extended to thousands of people in and around Gonaives Friday when a boat carrying tons of World Food Program relief supplies docked at the port, the WFP said.

Haiti's government pleaded for international aid, and the United Nations was in the process of launching an emergency appeal. Switzerland, France, the United States, the European Union and the Red Cross were among the countries and bodies to commit emergency relief.

While it may spare Haiti, Ike was on course to batter the Bahamas Saturday and Sunday before possibly slamming into Cuba, another island nation recently battered by this hurricane season's conga line of storms.

Ike is then forecast to make landfall in south Florida on Wednesday as a major hurricane, Castillo warned.

Densely populated south Florida, including the cities of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, has not been hit by a major hurricane since devastating Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Andrew was the costliest natural disaster in US history until it was topped by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Ike was downgraded slightly Friday but remained dangerous, the NHC said.

With sustained winds of 185 kph, the hurricane over the western Atlantic was now a category three on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, but the centre said Ike was still 'expected to be a major hurricane as it nears the hurricane watch area.'

As of 2100 GMT on Friday, the eye of Ike was 745 kilometres north-east of Grand Turk Island and was moving west at about 24 kph, the NHC said.

Ike and Hanna were part of a trio of storms in the Atlantic, with Tropical Storm Josephine churning in the eastern Atlantic off of Cape Verde.

The storms follow Hurricane Gustav, which ripped through the Caribbean then slammed the US Gulf Coast, and Tropical Storm Fay, which also pounded several Caribbean islands and made landfall in Florida four times, dumping record amounts of rain. -- AFP