Residents in Jamaica are grappling with the scale of devastation wrought by Hurricane Melissa, as the storm moves into the Atlantic and starts to weaken.<\/p>\n
The hurricane made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, local time, as a catastrophic category five storm, making it one of the strongest hurricanes on record.<\/p>\n
The system has also swept through Cuba and Haiti and is expected to affect the Bahamas and Bermuda, albeit as a weaker category two.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
People were seen coming to terms with devastation in Santa Cruz, Jamaica, a day after Melissa passed through. (AP: Matias Delacroix)<\/p>\n
At its peak as it crossed the Jamaican coast, the storm was packing winds of 295 kilometres an hour.<\/p>\n
Images of the aftermath show ripped up roads, downed trees and powerlines, and collapsed houses.<\/p>\n
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Residents in Santa Cruz, Jamaica, are now beginning to survey the damage. (AP: Matias Delacroix)<\/p>\n
People were streaming into the shelters throughout the day after the storm ripped off the roofs of their homes and left them temporarily homeless.<\/p>\n
Jamaican officials have reported complications in assessing the full extent of the damage due to communication blackouts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica on Tuesday, local time, packing winds up to 295 kilometres an hour. (AP: Matias Delacroix)<\/p>\n
Extensive damage was reported in communities in the south of the country.<\/p>\n
Santa Cruz town in St. Elizabeth parish was devastated, the Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n
A landslide blocked main roads, streets were reduced to mud pits and residents swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Coastal communities in Jamaica’s south, where Hurricane Melissa made landfall, are among the worst impacted. (AP: Maria Alejandra Cardona)<\/p>\n
“I never see anything like this before in all my years living here,” resident Jennifer Small said.<\/p>\n
“The entire hillside came down last night,” said another resident, Robert James.<\/p>\n
Three-quarters of Jamaica without power<\/p>\n
The government said it hopes to reopen all of Jamaica’s airports as early as Thursday to ensure quick distribution of emergency relief supplies.<\/p>\n
The US government said it was deploying a disaster response team and search and rescue personnel to the region.<\/p>\n
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Authorities warned of landslides and catastrophic damage ahead of the storm’s arrival. (AP: Matias Delacroix)<\/p>\n
“It’s not going to be an easy road, Jamaica,” said Jamaica’s Disaster Risk Management Council deputy chairperson Desmond McKenzie said.<\/p>\n
“I know persons \u2026 are wondering what their future are going to be like.”<\/p>\n
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Residents face a long recovery in Alligator Pond, in Jamaica’s south-west. (Reuters: Octavio Jones)<\/p>\n
Jamaican education minister Dana Morris Dixon said 77 per cent of the island was without power on Wednesday but that water systems were not greatly affected.<\/p>\n
At least one death was reported in the island nation’s west when a tree fell on a baby, state minister Abka Fitz-Henley told local radio station Nationwide News Network.<\/p>\n
Caribbean nations hit hard as Melissa sweeps through<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, it had weakened to a category two after also churning through the nearby Caribbean nations of Haiti and Cuba.<\/p>\n
In Haiti, at least 25 people are dead in one coastal town alone after a river burst its banks and flooded nearby homes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Haitians battened down as Melissa approached the impoverished country on Tuesday, local time. (AP: Odelyn Joseph)<\/p>\n
Petit-Go\u00e2ve mayor Jean Bertrand Subr\u00e8me said dozens of homes had collapsed and people were still trapped under rubble as of Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
“I am overwhelmed by the situation,” he said as he pleaded with the government to help rescue victims.<\/p>\n
In Cuba, officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off on Wednesday, local time.<\/p>\n
The most destruction was concentrated in the south-west and north-west.<\/p>\n
Authorities said about 735,000 people remained in shelters in eastern Cuba.<\/p>\n
“That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba.<\/p>\n
The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing out Wednesday, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents in Jamaica are grappling with the scale of devastation wrought by Hurricane Melissa, as the storm moves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,10396,114358,13226,134,133839,110129,145728,18759,427],"class_list":["post-249158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bahamas","tag-bermuda","tag-cuba","tag-entertainment","tag-haiti","tag-hurricane","tag-hurricane-melissa","tag-jamaica","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249158","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=249158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}