People across the northern Caribbean are reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Melissa as dozens of deaths are reported in Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti.
The hurricane – at Category 5, the strongest on record to hit Jamaica directly – ripped across the Caribbean islands on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 25 people in Haiti, eight in Jamaica and one in the Dominican Republic.
The United States-based National Hurricane Center said early on Thursday that Melissa’s eye was expected to move away from the southeastern and central Bahamas before passing west of Bermuda.
Although the storm was downgraded to Category 1, the lowest strength on the Saffir-Simpson scale, it was still packing winds of 155km/h (100mph) with even higher gusts, the NHC reported.
In Haiti, where roughly 12,000 people remained in emergency shelters, families grappled with the rising death toll. Twenty people were reported dead in the southern coastal town of Petit-Goave alone, where a river burst its banks and collapsed dozens of homes.
Resident Steven Guadard told The Associated Press news agency that Melissa killed his entire family: “I had four children at home: a one-month-old baby, a seven-year-old, an eight-year-old and another who was about to turn four.”
Although no deaths were tallied in Cuba, more than 735,000 evacuated residents slowly returned home as the military helped to rescue people in isolated communities.
Recovery efforts were rolling out across Jamaica’s western parishes, where Melissa ripped roofs from homes, felled trees, flooded hospitals, and cut off electricity and water.
Yet even as Prime Minister Andrew Holness pledged a “credible and strong” recovery strategy, residents pleaded for help.
Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of the hard-hit parish of St Elizabeth, was left with only his bicycle.
“I don’t have a house now,” Guthrie told the AP. Although he has land in another location, he said, “I am going to need help.”
‘Ground zero’
The centre of Melissa did not cross over Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, allowing emergency relief flights ferrying water, food and other supplies to start landing at Norman Manley International Airport after it reopened late on Wednesday.
As the prime minister took a helicopter tour of the damage, the Jamaica Public Service utility kicked off a damage assessment as the majority of the island’s 2.8 million residents were left without electricity. It warned them to avoid downed power lines “at all costs”.
To the island’s west, parishes, including St James and St Elizabeth, were rocked by torrential floodwaters, powerful winds and landslides.
In the historic port town of Black River, the hurricane levelled homes, destroyed historic buildings and flooded medical care facilities, destroying the “entire infrastructure”, Holness said in a video update from the town.
To the north, heavy construction equipment crawled through the mud-soaked streets of St James Parish to clear blockages and push aside felled trees. Video footage showed dazed residents wandering around outside to assess the damage.
The United States and the United Kingdom have pledged support.
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