Hurricane Melissa has made landfall as a category 5 storm in Jamaica, battering the country with ferocious winds, heavy flood waters and landslides from one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes in history.<\/p>\n
Jamaica\u2019s minister of local government, Desmond Mckenzie, said on Tuesday afternoon that the south-western parish of St Elizabeth was \u201cunder water\u201d and that at least three families were trapped in their homes in the community of Black River in western Jamaica<\/a>. Emergency services were struggling to reach due them to the dangerous conditions, he said. He declined to confirm whether there were any deaths.<\/p>\n Describing the hurricane as \u201cone of the worst experiences that [Jamaica] has ever encountered\u201d, Mckenzie said more than 530,000 people were without electricity and close to 15,000 people were in storm shelters.<\/p>\n \u201cThe damage to St Elizabeth is extensive, based on what we have seen. Sections of Clarendon are also is experiencing severe conditions,\u201d he said at a press briefing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cOur infrastructure has been severely compromised. St Elizabeth is the breadbasket of the country and that has taken a beating. The entire Jamaica has felt the brunt of Melissa,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He also warned that Jamaica was not out of the woods and that the system, which was downgraded to a category four as it moved across the island, was still active.<\/p>\n Videos and photographs published by local newspapers painted a devastating portrait of the impact: roads transformed into raging rivers<\/a>, downed power lines and trees, and roofs ripped off buildings<\/a> by the power of the winds. \u201cHurricane Melissa is wreaking absolute havoc on Jamaica\u2019s breadbasket parish,\u201d the Jamaica Observer reported<\/a> from St Elizabeth in the south-west of the island.<\/p>\n The prime minister, Andrew Holness, posted on X on Tuesday afternoon: \u201cOur thoughts and prayers are with our citizens in that part of the island as we give you the assurance that we will be with you throughout, mobilising support and relief.\u201d A few hours later he officially declared the Caribbean country \u201ca disaster area\u201d as a result of widespread flooding, landslides and infrastructure damage.<\/p>\n The slow-moving colossus is the most intense hurricane to hit Jamaica since records began in 1851 and will linger over the island for hours before turning north-east.<\/p>\n Matthew Cappucci, an American meteorologist who flew through the eye of the storm on Sunday, called the experience \u201cscientifically stunning and horrifying from a humanitarian standpoint\u201d. \u201cMillions of people could awaken Wednesday to devastation \u2013 shattered communities, an unrecognisable landscape and scarring that will take decades to mend,\u201d he wrote<\/a> in the Washington Post.<\/p>\n In Portmore, a community on Jamaica\u2019s south-eastern coast, the Mercy Corps adviser Colin Bogle said he had been woken \u201cby a loud explosion \u2013 and everything went dark\u201d. \u201cOutside, trees are being violently tossed in the wind, and the noise is relentless,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u200bIn a televised address to the nation, the president of Cuba \u2013 which Melissa is expected to hit next \u2013 warned citizens the storm could be \u201cone of the most severe \u2013 or possibly the strongest\u201d ever to hit the island. \u201cWe want to emphasise \u2026 the magnitude of this event,\u201d said Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel, urging Cubans not to return to their homes from shelters. Wind speeds dropped to 145mph as the storm moved across Jamaica, making it a category 4 storm, but it was still expected to cause widespread infrastructure damage and flooding.<\/p>\n Jamaica\u2019s government said it had done all it could to prepare, issuing a mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas, as it warned of severe impact for the nation\u2019s 2.8 million people.<\/p>\n The streets in the capital, Kingston, remained largely empty on Tuesday, with footage showing trees bent over by the force of the wind.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a category 5,\u201d said Holness. \u201cThe question now is the speed of recovery. That\u2019s the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n A police vehicle drives along a road littered with tree debris from Hurricane Melissa in Kingston, Jamaica, on Tuesday. Photograph: Rudolph Brown\/EPA<\/p>\n Category 5 is the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds exceeding 157mph (250km\/h). The US National Hurricane Center reported that Melissa carried sustained wind speeds of 185mph (298km\/h), with higher gusts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a catastrophic situation expected in Jamaica,\u201d the World Meteorological Organization\u2019s tropical cyclone specialist, Anne-Claire Fontan, told a Geneva press briefing. \u201cFor Jamaica, it will be the storm of the century for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n Heavy rain knocked out power for some residents in Portland, St Thomas, St Andrew, St Elizabeth and Westmoreland, including in popular tourist destinations such as Negril and Treasure Beach.<\/p>\n One particularly badly hit area was Manchester parish, which has faced days of torrential rain and violent winds as the storm approached.<\/p>\n One resident, Emma Simms, 37, said she had made a makeshift shelter within a cupboard in her house, where she intended to relocate with her children, 4 and 1.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve tried to make it nice and comfortable. There\u2019s snacks in there, there\u2019s water in there,\u201d she said. \u201cIf things sound like the house isn\u2019t going to hold up, then I\u2019m just going to go in there. We\u2019re going to stick a mattress on top of us and just keep [my children] happy until it passes. Try to make it fun and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Simms, a data analyst and transport consultant, moved to Jamaica from the UK six years ago and experienced her first Jamaican hurricane when Beryl devastated the country last summer. \u201cI feel like this is worse than Beryl already and it hasn\u2019t even landed yet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI feel I\u2019ve got people to protect, like I need to keep it together. But my belly has been feeling different than it has for the last few days. I can definitely feel the anxiety in me.\u201d<\/p>\n Hurricane Melissa<\/a><\/p>\n The chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, Jonathan Porter, said Melissa would be the strongest hurricane to hit Jamaica directly in recorded history.<\/p>\n Landslides were reported before the storm, with officials in Jamaica cautioning that the cleanup and damage assessment would be slow. The storm entered near St Elizabeth parish in the south and was expected to exit in the north, forecasters said.<\/p>\n \u201cTotal structural failure is possible near the path of Melissa\u2019s centre,\u201d said the US National Hurricane Center, which is based in Miami.<\/p>\n A life-threatening storm surge of up to 13ft (4 metres) was expected across southern Jamaica, with officials concerned about the impact on some hospitals along the coastline. The health minister, Christopher Tufton, said some patients were being relocated from the ground floor to the second floor, \u201cand [we] hope that will suffice for any surge that will take place\u201d.<\/p>\n The storm is already thought to have caused seven deaths in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.<\/p>\n Melissa is so unusually strong that the US military said it had moved its forces \u2013 likely to be ships and aircraft \u2013 in the vicinity of the storm to safer areas.<\/p>\n Climate scientists have said the intensification of Hurricane Melissa \u2013 with winds doubling from 70mph to 140mph in just a day \u2013 is probably a symptom of the rapid heating of the world\u2019s oceans, part of the human-driven climate crisis.<\/p>\n Climate crisis<\/a><\/p>\n Leanne Archer, a research associate in climate extremes at the University of Bristol, said: \u201cThere has been a perfect storm of conditions leading to the colossal strength of Hurricane Melissa: a warm ocean which has fuelled its rapid intensification over the last few days, but it is also moving slowly, meaning more rain can fall while it moves across land.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of these conditions have been supercharged by the extra heat in our oceans and atmosphere due to climate change. A warmer ocean means more energy and more strength; and more moisture in the warmer atmosphere means more rain can fall with a higher intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, the world\u2019s oceans were the warmest on record<\/a>, continuing a recent trend of record-breaking marine heat. And a 2023 study<\/a> found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to intensify rapidly from minor storms to powerful and catastrophic events.<\/p>\n After Jamaica, Melissa is forecast to cross Cuba and the Bahamas by Wednesday.<\/p>\n The UN\u2019s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that it would send solar lamps, blankets, indoor tents, generators and other items from its logistics hub in Barbados to Jamaica as soon as the storm crossed the island.<\/p>\n \u201cMany people are likely to be displaced from their homes and in urgent need of shelter and relief,\u201d said Natasha Greaves, interim head for IOM Jamaica.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa has made landfall as a category 5 storm in Jamaica, battering the country with ferocious winds,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-257658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}