Hurricane Melissa death toll tops 50; ‘apocalyptic’ Caribbean damage
Communities across the Caribbean on Saturday were continuing to pick up the pieces left by the devastating and deadly former Hurricane Melissa, which walloped Jamaica as one of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall in Atlantic history and brought catastrophic flooding to several islands in the region.
Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 185 mph in Jamaica on Tuesday. It was the most powerful hurricane to ever strike the island nation, bringing torrential rains and damaging winds, which left hundreds of thousands without power, destroyed homes and scattered fields with debris. It next made landfall in Cuba as a Category 3 storm before going through the Bahamas and passing near Bermuda.
The death toll in the Caribbean climbed to more than 60 Saturday, after the Jamaican government confirmed 28 deaths in an X post shared by Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Deaths also were reported in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, including in areas that did not experience a direct landfall, but saw severe flooding from the slow-moving storm. Jamaican officials said additional reports of possible fatalities are still being verified.
“Every single life lost is a huge tragedy,” said Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaican minister of education, skills, youth and information, at a news conference on Friday. “We have never had a Category 5 hurricane in our country. The devastation in the west is unimaginable.”
‘Apocalyptic’ devastation
On Friday, authorities in Jamaica said they were working to deliver food and other aid to people devastated by Melissa and recover the bodies of additional people reported dead, using helicopters to reach areas with impassable roads. The country’s works department had made some progress clearing thoroughfares, Dixon said.
Some 462,000 people remained without power, she said.
Desmond McKenzie, the country’s minister of local government and community development, said communications were still knocked out in five parishes on Oct. 31. In Falmouth, the capital of the Trelawney Parish along the northwestern coast, “it is not a pretty reading,” he said.
“The municipal building has been destroyed. The infirmary: destroyed. The roads and works department: destroyed. The courthouse: destroyed,” McKenzie said.
“The situation on the ground is what can only be described as apocalyptic,” World Food Programme Caribbean director Brian Bogart said at a news conference in Black River, Jamaica, near Melissa’s landfall.