MIAMI, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Food and other emergency relief supplies began arriving in the Haitian port city of Gonaives on Friday as floodwaters that killed at least 136 people and sent thousands fleeing to their rooftops receded.

A freighter with food supplied by the U.N.'s World Food Program and carrying other supplies such as drinking water docked in the town, where the streets were thick with mud and littered with the carcasses of drowned animals after four days of floods.

It was the first of several vessels and aircraft, including helicopters, set to arrive with aid for Gonaives, the WFP said.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas where most people scrape by on less than $2 a day, has been hit by three successive storms in less than a month. Tropical Storm Fay killed more than 50 people last month while Hurricane Gustav left at least 75 people dead.

Tropical Storm Hanna this week sent up to 6.5 feet (2 metres) of muddy water pouring through Gonaives. At least 136 people died, most of them in the town, the Caribbean country's civil protection office said.

Hanna had pulled away from Haiti on Friday and was set to crash ashore on the U.S. East Coast in the Carolinas early on Saturday.

In its wake, however, came fierce Hurricane Ike, which could dip close to northern Haiti before taking aim at south Florida, Cuba or potentially the Gulf of Mexico next week.

The storms have flooded fields in Haiti and compounded the misery of an impoverished population of about 9 million struggling to cope with rising food and fuel prices.

"Right now these storms are threatening the gradual progress we were making in helping the most vulnerable communities better cope with high food and fuel prices," said Myrta Kaulard, the WFP representative in Haiti. (Reporting by Michael Christie; Editing by Jane Sutton and Xavier Briand)

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