Hurricane Melissa has battered Jamaica after making landfall near New Hope early Wednesday morning AEDT as a Category 5 storm, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded to strike the island in 174 years of recordkeeping.
The US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) downgraded Melissa to Category 4 a few hours later but warned it remained “extremely dangerous,” with sustained winds reaching 300km/h, torrential rain, and a life-threatening storm surge.
The hurricane is expected to continue tracking across Jamaica before moving toward eastern Cuba later today.
Photo: Matias Delacroix / AP.
At least seven people have died, three in Jamaica as residents prepared for the storm, three in Haiti, and one in the Dominican Republic.
Around 240,000 Jamaicans are without power, and emergency teams have struggled to reach stranded families as roads are blocked by fallen trees and debris.
The NHC described Melissa as even more powerful than Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans two decades ago.
A UN agency has labelled it the “storm of the century,” marking the first time Jamaica has ever faced a Category 5 hurricane.
