First aid ship arrives in Hanna destroyed Haiti while the US waits patiently

The convoy crept over mud-caked, semi-paved roads past closed stores, overturned buses and women wading in water up to their knees with plastic tubs on their heads.

After about 45 minutes, the half-dozen trucks ground to a halt. UN peacekeepers wearing camouflage fatigues and bulletproof vests jumped out while others stood guard with assault rifles.

Before them, a huge gouge marred the road. The floods had split the asphalt, and water ran through the three-metre-wide gap.

The convoy turned around. And the children - like tens of thousands more in this increasingly desperate city - went another day without food.

'I haven't eaten since Monday'

Later, Argentine UN troops stopped to dish out cooked rice from their own food supplies to a small crowd of hungry orphans.

"I haven't eaten since Monday," 12-year-old Srita Omiscar said as she waited in line with about 50 others.

Just a few blocks away, a woman's corpse in a floral dress floated in a submerged intersection.

At least 137 people died when Hanna struck Haiti, 102 of them in Ganaives and its surroundings, officials said on Thursday. Some 250 000 people are affected in the Gonaives region and 54 000 people are living shelters across the country. Argentine Captain Sergio Hoj estimated that half of Gonaives' houses remained flooded on Thursday.

Haiti's government has few resources to help. Rescue convoys have been blocked by floodwaters, although the UN World Food Programme said on Thursday it was sending a food-laden boat to Gonaives from the capital, Port-au-Prince, and would set up a base in the stricken city.

"All roads able to access Gonaives are cut either by bridges that have collapsed, by trees that have fallen down, or by waters that have washed away parts of the streets," UN food agency representative Myrta Kaulard said.

U.N. peacekeepers worked through the night to repair a storm-damaged dock in the flooded city, and now soldiers and dock workers are offloading 15 metric tons of bottled water, 36,000 water-purification tablets, 16 metric tons of high-energy biscuits and two metric tons of rice, along with other supplies.

Hard on Hanna's heels was Ike, a powerful hurricane posing a potentially more serious threat to Caribbean islands and the US.

The storm weakened from a category four to a category three hurricane early on Friday but was still described as dangerous by the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, packing sustained winds of over 125 mph. .

Ike's path was unclear but it was expected to spare Haiti and threaten Cuba and the Bahamas before heading towards South Florida by Wednesday.