Hurricane Melissa leaves dozens dead in trail of destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica

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Hurricane Melissa losing wind intensity as it heads north after slamming Jamaica

Hurricane floodwaters rush through streets in Santiago de Cuba

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SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba — Hurricane Melissa left at least dozens dead amid widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and water-logged furniture dominated the landscape Wednesday.

A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz in Jamaica’s St. Elizabeth parish, where the streets were reduced to mud pits. Residents swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings. Wind ripped off part of the roof at a high school that serves as a public shelter.

“I never see anything like this before in all my years living here,” resident Jennifer Small said.

The extent of the damage from the deadly Category 5 hurricane was unclear Wednesday as widespread power outages and dangerous conditions persisted.

“It is too early for us to say definitively,” said Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s education minister.

Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica with top winds of 185 mph (295 kph), one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, before weakening and moving on to Cuba, but even countries outside the direct path of the massive storm felt its devastating effects.

At least 25 people have died across Haiti and 18 are missing, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said in a statement Wednesday. Twenty of those reported dead and 10 of the missing are from a southern coastal town where flooding collapsed dozens of homes. At least eight are dead in Jamaica.

In Cuba, officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off buildings Wednesday, with the heaviest destruction concentrated in the southwest and northwest. Authorities said about 735,000 people remained in shelters.

“That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba. The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing out Wednesday, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain.

Forecasters expect Melissa, now a Category 1 hurricane, to bring dangerous winds, flooding and storm surge to the Bahamas on Wednesday night.

• IN PICTURES: Hurricane Melissa devastates Jamaica, makes its way through Cuba

Jamaica rushes to assess the damage

In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were packed into shelters Wednesday and more streamed in throughout the day after the storm ripped roofs off their homes and left them temporarily homeless. Dixon said 77 per cent of the island was without power.

Outages complicated assessing the damage because of “a total communication blackout” in areas, Richard Thompson, acting director general of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, told the Nationwide News Network radio station.

“Recovery will take time, but the government is fully mobilized,” Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a statement. “Relief supplies are being prepared, and we are doing everything possible to restore normalcy quickly.”

Officials in Black River, Jamaica, a coastal town of approximately 5,000 people in the southwestern part of the island, pleaded for aid at a news conference Wednesday.

“Catastrophic is a mild term based on what we are observing,” Mayor Richard Solomon said.

Solomon said the local rescue infrastructure had been demolished by the storm. The hospital, police units and emergency services were inundated by floods and unable to conduct emergency operations. The storm also destroyed the facility where relief supplies were being stored.

In southwest Jamaica, David Muschette, 84, sat among the rubble of his roofless house. He said he lost everything as he pointed to his wet clothes and furniture strewn across the grass while part of his roof partially blocked the road.

“I need help,” he begged.

The government said it hopes to reopen Jamaica’s airports as early as Thursday to ensure quick distribution of emergency relief supplies.

The United States is sending rescue and response teams to assist in recovery efforts in the Caribbean, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X. He said government officials were coordinating with leadership in Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

St. Elizabeth Police Superintendent Coleridge Minto told Nationwide News Network on Wednesday that authorities have found at least four bodies in southwest Jamaica. One death was reported in the west when a tree fell on a baby, state minister Abka Fitz-Henley told Nationwide News Network.

Before landfall, Melissa had already been blamed for three deaths in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic.

Cuba rides out the storm

People in the eastern Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba began clearing debris around the collapsed walls of their homes Wednesday after Melissa made landfall in the region hours earlier.

“Life is what matters,” Alexis Ramos, a 54-year-old fisherman, said as he surveyed his destroyed home and shielded himself from the intermittent rain with a yellow raincoat. “Repairing this costs money, a lot of money.”

Local media showed images of the Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Hospital with severe damage: glass scattered across the floor, waiting rooms in ruins and masonry walls crumpled on the ground.

“It has been a very complex early morning,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on X. “As soon as conditions allow, we will begin the recovery. We are ready.”

The hurricane could worsen Cuba’s severe economic crisis, which already has led to prolonged power blackouts along with fuel and food shortages.

Cuba’s National Institute of Hydraulic Resources reported accumulated rainfall of 15 inches (38 centimetres) in Charco Redondo and 14 inches (36 centimetres) in Las Villas Reservoir.

Wednesday night Melissa had top sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph) and was moving north-northeast at 16 mph (26 kph) according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane was centered about 65 miles (100 kilometres) east of the central Bahamas and about 860 miles (1,385 kilometres) southwest of Bermuda.

Authorities in the Bahamas were evacuating dozens of people from the archipelago’s southeast corner ahead of Melissa’s arrival.

Melissa’s centre is forecast to move through southeastern Bahamas later Wednesday, generating up to 7 feet (2 metres) of storm surge in the area. By late Thursday, Melissa is expected to pass just west of Bermuda.

By Ariel Fernandez, Andrea Rodriguez, John Myers Jr. And Evens Sanon.

Rodriguez reported from Havana, Myers from Santa Cruz, Jamaica, and Sanon from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.