Tropical storm Fay bore down on Cuba early Sunday, after barreling across the Dominican Republic and Haiti and leaving two people dead and four missing there.

In the Dominican Republic one person was killed and three were missing due to the heavy rains, while thousands of people were evacuated to avoid the storm, local media reported.

In Haiti, the heavy rains killed one person in the north and another was missing in the south, civil protection officials told AFP.

Winds from the sixth storm of the Atlantic hurricane season were clocked at 85 kilometers per hour, the Miami-based US national Hurricane Center said.

But, the center said in its latest report, "some strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours and Fay could be approaching hurricane strength when it reaches Central Cuba."

At 9.00am GMT, the center of storm was located about 200 kilometers south-southeast of Camaguey, Cuba.

Fay was moving toward the west at 20 kilometers per hour.

The NHS forecasts it will skirt the island's southern coast, then the western tip of Cuba, before intensifying possibly to hurricane strength with sustained winds at least 120 kilometers an hour. It will be near or over western Cuba late Sunday or Monday.

After crossing Cuba, Fay is then expected to head up the west coast of Florida, hitting land near Tampa on Tuesday afternoon and moving straight north into Georgia.

A hurricane watch was declared in the Florida Keys and a tropical storm watch was in effect on the southeast coast of Florida.

With the storm expected to gather strength, Havana began evacuating its citizen from the coastal areas that are expected to be affected by the storm.

In Miami, residents began descending on gas stations and supermarkets to fill up their gas tanks and stock up on bottled water and other emergency items in anticipation of Fay's arrival early next week.

Local television stations broadcast warnings about possible business shutdowns and power cuts.

In the Dominican Republic, a woman drowned in a swollen creek and her two nephews and another person were missing, the Listin Diario newspaper said on its website.

More than 2000 Dominicans were evacuated to shelters as the storm felled trees, damaged hundreds of houses and knocked out power to more than 15 000 homes, according to local news reports.

Fay earlier raked across Haiti, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and red alerts were posted along with orders to evacuate flood zones as heavy rains and winds battered much of the country.

"Most of Haiti is under heavy rains, especially in the south, with winds clocked at about 70 kilometers per hour," Ronald Semelfort, an official with Haiti's meteorological service, told AFP.

"A person was killed in the city of Fond-Verettes and another was missing in the southern part of the country where local authorities have begun evacuating areas at risk from flooding," Civilian Protection Agency director Alta Jean-Baptiste told AFP.

AFP