Hurricane Melissa heads toward Cuba’s second-largest city on Tuesday as a powerful Category 4 storm, hours after slamming into Jamaica as the strongest-ever cyclone to hit the Caribbean island nation.
Melissa made landfall near Jamaica’s southwestern town of New Hope with sustained winds of up to 185 mph (295 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC), well above the 157 mph (252 kph) threshold for a Category 5 hurricane, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.
In southwestern Jamaica, St. Elizabeth Parish was left “underwater,” officials said, with more than 500,000 residents without electricity.
“The reports we have received so far include damage to hospitals, significant damage to homes and commercial properties, and extensive destruction of road infrastructure,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a televised interview.
Holness added that while no fatalities had been confirmed, the government feared loss of life given the storm’s strength and scale of destruction.
The NHC said Melissa’s winds later weakened slightly to 145 mph (233 kph) as it moved past Jamaica, lashing mountainous areas prone to landslides and flash floods. The storm was projected to veer northeast toward Santiago de Cuba, Cuba’s second-most populous city.
“We should already be feeling its main influence this afternoon and evening,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said in the state newspaper Granma, urging residents to obey evacuation orders. “We know this cyclone will cause significant damage.”
Cuban authorities said 500,000 people had been ordered to move to higher ground. In the Bahamas, next in Melissa’s path, the government issued evacuation orders for residents in the southern islands.
Farther east, torrential downpours on the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic caused at least four deaths, officials said. Local media in Jamaica reported three additional fatalities during storm preparations, and a disaster coordinator suffered a stroke as the hurricane approached.
Meteorologists described Melissa as Jamaica’s “storm of the century,” the first time the island had taken a direct hit from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. The government appealed for foreign assistance as rescue and recovery operations began.
According to AccuWeather, Melissa ranks as the third most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Caribbean, after Wilma (2005) and Gilbert (1988) the latter also a devastating storm for Jamaica.
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“This is a catastrophic situation,” said Anne-Claire Fontan, a tropical cyclone specialist at the World Meteorological Organization, warning of storm surges up to four metres high.
Colin Bogle, an adviser to aid group Mercy Corps in Portmore, near Kingston, said he heard a loud explosion before power failed across the area. “People are scared. Memories of Hurricane Gilbert run deep, and there is frustration that Jamaica continues to face the worst consequences of a climate crisis we did not cause,” he said.
Scientists warn that hurricanes are intensifying more rapidly due to rising sea temperatures linked to climate change. Caribbean leaders have urged industrialised nations to provide climate reparations, including aid and debt relief, to vulnerable island states.
Melissa swelled in size and strength over unusually warm Caribbean waters, and its slow movement could make the destruction worse, forecasters cautioned.
Widespread Flooding and Destruction
In St. Elizabeth, the worst-hit parish, the main hospital lost power and reported severe structural damage, according to Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie. Rescue teams evacuated stranded families, including one group with four infants.
Around 15,000 people were sheltering in temporary facilities late Tuesday, and the government had issued mandatory evacuation orders for 28,000 residents, though many refused to leave their homes.
The International Federation of the Red Cross estimated that up to 1.5 million Jamaicans could be directly affected by the hurricane.
As Melissa now bears down on Cuba and the Bahamas, forecasters warn that heavy rainfall, storm surges and landslides could cause catastrophic damage across the northern Caribbean in the coming days.
