{"id":234355,"date":"2025-10-30T17:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234355\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T17:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:11:10","slug":"jamaican-officials-assess-total-devastation-as-hurricane-melissa-approaches-bermuda-follow-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234355\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamaican officials assess ‘total devastation’ as Hurricane Melissa approaches Bermuda – follow live"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Piles of debris and lingering flood waters’: BBC team arrives in Kingstonpublished at 16:11 GMT<\/p>\n

16:11 GMT<\/p>\n

\"\"Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Jamaica<\/p>\n

As the news briefing from officials continues, we can bring you the latest update from our BBC team:<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve just arrived in Kingston\u2019s main airport on one of the first few commercial flights since Hurricane Melissa pummelled through and damaged parts of the airport days ago. <\/p>\n

It was surreal passing over the idyllic turquoise blue waters and lush green tree-covered mountains, knowing what lies below.<\/p>\n

The greater Kingston area has mostly been spared, but to the west – particularly in parts of St Elizabeth parish – large swathes of the region have been decimated. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s where we\u2019re headed. At least, we\u2019ll try.<\/p>\n

Roads are still being cleared, many for the first time. Blocked by piles of debris and lingering flood waters, some areas remain inaccessible.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be navigating all the unpredictability of a terrain that has just been hit by the strongest hurricane in Jamaican history. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Piles of debris and lingering flood waters’: BBC team arrives in Kingstonpublished at 16:11 GMT 16:11 GMT Brandon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-234355","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\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}