{"id":247392,"date":"2025-10-28T23:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T23:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/247392\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T23:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T23:41:11","slug":"jamaica-hit-by-category-5-storm-landfall-made-near-new-hope-haiti-dominican-republic-impacted-death-toll-rises-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/247392\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamaica hit by Category 5 storm, landfall made near New Hope; Haiti, Dominican Republic impacted; death toll rises"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Misinformation may have hampered efforts to evacuate Jamaicans from high-risk areas before the arrival of Hurricane Melissa, the country\u2019s government officials say.<\/p>\n<p>Three separate Jamaican MPs expressed concern at false and misleading information circulating on social media and messaging apps in the lead-up to the storm making landfall.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"People walk along a road as Hurricane Melissa buffets Rocky Point, Jamaica, on Tuesday.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2d1751bcd454890fb14795f4370663edf1349fa1.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>People walk along a road as Hurricane Melissa buffets Rocky Point, Jamaica, on Tuesday.Credit: AP<\/p>\n<p>Minister of information Dana Morris Dixon said she had seen fake videos of the hurricane circulating online, including through a number of WhatsApp groups.<\/p>\n<p>Two other ministers also warned about spreading \u201cfalse and malicious\u201d misinformation, including reports about storm shelters charging fees to those seeking shelter and inaccurate information about what locations were being hit by flooding, according to NBC News.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is happening is that there is an attempt by persons with bad intention to create confusion at this time,\u201d Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenzie said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe country doesn\u2019t need confusion at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As of Monday evening, only 1700 people had evacuated to 130 shelters opened across the island, despite authorities expecting 50,000 of Jamaica\u2019s 2.8 million residents to be displaced.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"People in Jamaica shelter before the hurricane\u2019s arrival.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/d39e6d0695453b621ab179227508358b9ef0e68b.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>People in Jamaica shelter before the hurricane\u2019s arrival.Credit: AP<\/p>\n<p>Reports have emerged of residents in the island\u2019s south, the area most affected by the weather front, staying behind to protect their businesses, despite warnings from authorities that the area could experience catastrophic damage.<\/p>\n<p>One exception was the small community of Old Harbor, just west of Kingston, where about 200 people crowded in the shelter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s definitely more than last time,\u201d said Jason Fuller, a firefighter and shelter volunteer, referring to the number of people that sought shelter from Hurricane Beryl last year.<\/p>\n<p>In the past, Jamaicans have complained about the safety in shelters and the lack of basic goods.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am feeling safe and OK,\u201d said a cheerful 13-year-old girl who only provided her first name as Natanya.<\/p>\n<p>With AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Misinformation may have hampered efforts to evacuate Jamaicans from high-risk areas before the arrival of Hurricane Melissa, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-247392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}