SAN JOSE, Oct 6 — Tropical Storm Nate killed at least 10 people in Central America yesterday as it pummelled the region with heavy rain while heading toward Mexico's Caribbean resorts and the US Gulf Coast where it could strike as a hurricane this weekend.

Emergency officials in Costa Rica reported that at least six people were killed due to the lashing rain, including two children. The government declared a state of emergency, closing schools and all other non-essential services.

Highways were closed due to mudslides and power outages were also reported in parts of country, where authorities deployed more than 3,500 soldiers.

"We can assure you that the number of displaced people is going to greatly increase,” Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis told a news conference.

In Nicaragua, at least four people died and six others were reported missing amid severe rain, the country's vice president, Rosario Murillo, told state media.

Officials shut schools due to the rainfall, which the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said could be as much as 51 cm in some isolated areas.

Nate is predicted to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane by the time it hits the US Gulf Coast on Sunday, NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.

At about 5pm EDT (2100 GMT) Nate was some 40 miles (64 km) west-southwest of the Honduran town of Puerto Lempira, moving north-northwest at 16 kph, the NHC said.

Blowing maximum sustained winds of 64 kph, Nate was expected to move across northeastern Nicaragua and eastern Honduras yesterday and enter the northwestern Caribbean Sea last night.

The storm will be near hurricane intensity when it approaches Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula late today, where up to 20 cm of rain were possible, the NHC said.

Nate is expected to produce 15 to 25 cm of rain in southern Honduras, with up to 50 cm in some areas, the NHC said. The storm was forecast to dump 7.5-15 cm of rain in northern Costa Rica, with up to 25 cm in some areas, it added.

US officials from Florida to Texas told residents yesterday to prepare for the storm. A state of emergency was declared for 29 Florida counties and the city of New Orleans.

"The threat of the impact is increasing, so folks along the northern Gulf Coast should be paying attention to this thing,” the NHC's Feltgen said.

In Mississippi, the US Environmental Protection Agency plans to release as a precautionary measure 151 million litres of acidic water from storage ponds at a Pascagoula waste site.

The release to a drainage bayou is intended to prevent a greater spill during the storm, the EPA said, adding there are no anticipated impacts to the environment.

Major Gulf of Mexico offshore oil producers including Chevron, BP plc, Exxon Mobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Statoil were shutting in production or withdrawing personnel from their offshore Gulf platforms, they said.

About 14.6 per cent of US Gulf of Mexico oil production and 6.4 per cent of natural gas production was offline yesterday, the US Department of the Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said. — Reuters