Hurricane Melissa hits Cuba after killing 26 people in Haiti, Jamaica

Hurricane Melissa is pummeling the Caribbean island of Cuba after it first caused devastation in Haiti and Jamaica, leading to the deaths of at least 26 people.

Twenty-five of the reported deaths on Wednesday came after a river burst its banks in the southern coastal Haitian town of Petit-Goave, flooding and collapsing dozens of homes.

The mayor of the town, Jean Bertrand Subreme, said that people were still trapped under the rubble of their homes.

“I am overwhelmed by the situation,” Subreme said, as he pleaded for help from the government.

The other death on Wednesday was reported in Jamaica, after a tree fell on a baby in the western side of the island, according to State Minister Abka Fitz-Henley.

The storm was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record when it hit Jamaica on Tuesday, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

As it crossed Cuba on Wednesday, it weakened to a Category 2 storm from its previous Category 5 classification. It is projected to move into the Bahamas later on Wednesday.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness had declared Jamaica a “disaster area” after Hurricane Melissa barrelled across the island.

The hurricane ripped off the roofs of homes, inundated Jamaica’s “bread basket”, and felled power lines and trees, leaving most of its 2.8 million people without electricity.

“It’s not going to be an easy road, Jamaica,” said Desmond McKenzie, deputy chairman of Jamaica’s Disaster Risk Management Council. “I know persons … are wondering what their futures are going to be like.”

Melissa took hours to cross over Jamaica, a passage over land that diminished its winds, before it ramped back up as it continued towards Cuba.

More than 735,000 people remain in shelters in eastern Cuba, with a hurricane warning in effect for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas.

The governor of Granma, Yanetsy Terry Gutierrez, said that parts of the province, including in the provincial capital Jiguani, were “under water”.

Officials in Cuba have also reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads, and roofs blown off.

‘Communication blackout’

The Jamaican government had lifted the tropical storm warning by Wednesday, but officials are struggling to assess the damage.

“There’s a total communications blockout on that side,” said Richard Thompson, the acting director general of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, referring to the south and southwest of the island.

McKenzie said that four hospitals had been damaged and one was left without power, forcing the evacuation of 75 patients.

Heavy damage was also reported in Clarendon, in Jamaica’s south, and Saint Elizabeth, in the southwest, where a landslide blocked main roads in the town of Santa Cruz, and winds ripped off part of the roof of a school used as a shelter.

“I never saw anything like this before in all my years living here,” said one resident of the town, Jennifer Small.

“The entire hillside came down last night,” said another, Robert James.

Prime Minister Holness said on Tuesday that his government was mobilising quickly to start relief and recovery efforts by Wednesday morning.

Even before Melissa slammed into Jamaica, seven deaths – three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic – were caused by the hurricane.

‘Monstrous Melissa’

Robian Williams, a journalist with the Nationwide News Network radio broadcaster in Kingston, told Al Jazeera that the storm was the “worst we’ve ever experienced”.

“It’s truly heartbreaking, devastating,” she said from the capital.

“We’re calling Hurricane Melissa ‘Monstrous Melissa’ here in Jamaica because that’s how powerful she was. … The devastation is widespread, mostly being felt and still being felt in the western ends of the country at this point in time. So many homes, so many people have been displaced,” she said.

“We did prepare, but there wasn’t much that we could have done.”

In Kingston, Lisa Sangster, a 30-year-old communications specialist, said her home was devastated by the storm.

“My sister … explained that parts of our roof were blown off and other parts caved in and the entire house was flooded,” she told the AFP news agency. “Outside structures like our outdoor kitchen, dog kennel and farm animal pens were also gone, destroyed.”

Mathue Tapper, 31, told AFP that those in the capital were “lucky”, but he feared for people in Jamaica’s more rural areas.

“My heart goes out to the folks living on the western end of the island,” he said.

Climate change

Although Jamaica and Cuba are used to hurricanes, climate change is making the storms more severe.

British-Jamaican climate change activist and author Mikaela Loach said in a video shared on social media that Melissa “gained energy from the extremely and unnaturally hot seas in the Caribbean”.

“These sea temperatures are not natural,” Loach said. “They’re extremely hot because of the gases that have resulted from burning fossil fuels.”

“Countries like Jamaica, countries that are most vulnerable to climate disaster, are also countries that have had their wealth and resources stripped away from them through colonial bondage,” Loach added.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in September, Holness urged wealthy countries to increase climate financing to assist countries like Jamaica with adapting to the effects of a warming world.

“Climate change is not a distant threat or an academic consideration. It is a daily reality for small island developing states like Jamaica,” he said.

Jamaica is responsible for just 0.02 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global warming, according to data from the World Resources Institute.

But like other tropical islands, it is expected to continue to bear the brunt of worsening climate effects.