At least 36 deaths are being attributed to the storm across Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, according to officials.
Photo Credit: New York Times
Hurricane Melissa left dozens dead and widespread destruction across Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti on Wednesday, knocking out power and forcing residents from their homes in inundated towns.
At least 32 people have died due to the storm, officials said: eight in Jamaica, one in the Dominican Republican and 23 in Haiti, a lower total from an earlier count of 40. The number of reported deaths in Haiti often fluctuates early after major natural disasters.
“I am overwhelmed by the situation,” Jean Bertrand Subreme, mayor of the southern Haiti coastal town of Petit-Goave, said as he pleaded with the government to help rescue victims.
Officials expect the death toll to keep rising as heavy rains persist.
In eastern Cuba, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and a hurricane warning was in effect for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas as Hurricane Melissa made landfall as a Category 3 storm early Wednesday.
Only one official from Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency was in the area, with residents struggling to evacuate amid heavy floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Melissa in recent days.
Photo Credit: YAMIL LAGE / AFP
Melissa crossed Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, but has since been downgraded to Category 2. It was expected to generate a storm surge of up to 3.6 metres in the region and drop up to 51 centimetres of rain in parts of eastern Cuba.
Melissa was expected later Wednesday to move through the southeastern or central Bahamas, where a hurricane warning is in effect. It was expected to make its way near or to the west of Bermuda late Thursday. Haiti and the Turks and Caicos also braced for its effects.
Officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off in Cuba on Wednesday, with the most destruction concentrated in the southwest and northwest. Authorities said about 735,000 people remained in shelters in eastern Cuba.
“That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba. The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing out Wednesday, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain.
Melissa tore off roofs and uprooted trees in the province, but the full extent of damage wasn’t immediately known.
The hurricane could worsen Cuba’s severe economic crisis, which already has led to prolonged power blackouts, fuel shortages and food shortages.
“There will be a lot of work to do. We know there will be a lot of damage,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel said in a televised address, in which he assured that “no one is left behind and no resources are spared to protect the lives of the population.”
In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were packed into shelters Wednesday, hours after Melissa made landfall as a catastrophic Category 5 storm with top winds of 295 km/h — one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.
People kept streaming into the shelters throughout the day after the storm ripped off the roofs of their homes and left them temporarily homeless.
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