Howevere, by early Friday morning, Floyd was running out of steam. It was downgraded on Thursday afternoon to a tropical storm and as it headed rapidly toward Canada, weather forecasters said, it would lose tropical storm strength.

The massive storm, which flirted with some areas and never delivered the wallop some had predicted, prompted the largest evacuation in US history before it roared ashore at Cape Fear, North Carolina, with 110-mph winds just before dawn on Thursday.

By 0900 GMT on Friday, the storm was centred near Portland, Maine, moving northeast at 26 mph, the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said. Maximum sustained winds were 60 mph.

The Centre discontinued its tropical storm warning but warned of a continuing threat of coastal flooding and high seas.

AsFloyd headed off, President Bill Clinton released more than 500 million dollars in disaster aid for storm victims.

More than 3.5 million people along the eastern US shore evacuated their homes in anticipation of Floyd, which was close to being a very powerful category five hurricane as it roared in from the Atlantic at the start of the week, whistling first over the Bahamas.

Floyd's winds toppled trees and power lines and wrecked homes. More than 18 inches of rain was recorded at some places.

Thousands were left homeless and officials estimated that four million people from Florida to New Jersey lost electricity at some point during the storm.

Meanwhile, six people were killed when Typhoon York turned over a bus in China's southern province of Guangdong.