The devastating impacts of Hurricane Melissa proceed to be felt after the record-breaking storm, which first hit Jamaica, then tore by way of Cuba and Haiti on Wednesday, left greater than two dozen individuals useless and 18 lacking throughout the Caribbean, in response to The Related Press.
The Class 5 storm, with winds approaching 300 kilometres per hour when it made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, devastated properties, flooded roads, uprooted timber and toppled energy traces earlier than shifting on to japanese Cuba, the place the total extent of the injury continues to be being assessed and 735,000 individuals stay in shelters, in response to officers.
Regardless of weakening between hitting Jamaica on Tuesday and arriving in Cuba on Wednesday, the storm scattered roofs and flooded properties within the nation’s second-largest metropolis, Santiago de Cuba, leaving mountain roads blocked and downed energy traces in its wake.
Males experience after the passage of Hurricane Melissa in El Cobre, Cuba, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.
AP Photograph / RamÛn Espinosa
Essentially the most vital destruction was concentrated within the southwest and northwest of the island, the AP reported.
“That was hell. All night time lengthy, it was horrible,” Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba informed the outlet.
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Data from the UN assist co-ordination workplace (OCHA) discovered that Melissa ranked among the many most intense storms to hit Cuba in many years, with winds reaching almost 222 km/h and rainfall totals exceeding 145 millimetres over a two-day interval.
In the meantime, in Haiti, no less than 25 individuals have died and 18 are lacking because of the storm, the nation’s Civil Safety Company stated in a press release Wednesday, in response to the AP.
Folks keep inside a shelter for households displaced by gang violence, flooded by rain introduced by Hurricane Melissa, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.
AP Photograph/Odelyn Joseph
Twenty of these reported useless in Haiti and 10 of the lacking are from a southern coastal city the place flooding collapsed dozens of properties.
At the least eight are useless in Jamaica, in response to the AP.
Within the parish of St. Elizabeth, police Supt. Coleridge Minto informed Nationwide Information Community on Wednesday that authorities had recovered no less than 4 our bodies in southwest Jamaica.
One loss of life was reported within the west when a tree fell on a child, state minister Abka Fitz-Henley informed Nationwide Information Community.
On Thursday, greater than 13,000 individuals had been in shelters, in response to officers.
Nevertheless, it’s nonetheless too early to find out the extent of the injury attributable to energy outages and the hazardous situations that persist within the area, Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s training minister, stated.
“Restoration will take time, however the authorities is absolutely mobilized,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness informed the AP in a press release.
“Aid provides are being ready, and we’re doing all the pieces potential to revive normalcy rapidly.”
Black River, in Jamaica’s southwestern parish of St. Elizabeth, is struggling “catastrophic” injury, in response to its mayor, Richard Solomon, who stated that was a “gentle time period based mostly on what they’re observing.”
Residents stroll by way of Santa Cruz, Jamaica, on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, after Hurricane Melissa handed.
AP Photograph / Matias Delacroix
The parish’s emergency companies have been unable to reply calls as a result of demolition of its infrastructure, Solomon defined. Nonetheless, assist is on its method.
Jamaican Transportation Minister Daryl Vaz stated two of the island’s airports will open on Wednesday to obtain emergency aid flights solely, as UN companies and worldwide governments start flying in provides.
“The devastation is gigantic,” Vaz stated. “We’d like all palms on deck to recuperate stronger and to assist these in want at the moment.”
On Wednesday, the UN allotted US$4 million every to Haiti and Cuba from its Central Emergency Fund.
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X that the U.S. is sending emergency response groups to help in restoration efforts within the Caribbean, together with Cuba.
Specialists say Melissa, now a Class 2 hurricane, is predicted to deliver harmful winds, flooding and storm surges to the Bahamas on Thursday, adopted by Bermuda.
Earlier than landfall, Melissa had already been blamed for 3 deaths in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one within the Dominican Republic.
— with recordsdata from The Related Press
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