Overview
- Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared Jamaica a disaster zone after the Category 5 strike, with authorities reporting extensive wind damage, inundated towns, and crippled infrastructure.
- Officials and local media cited severe impacts in parishes such as Saint Elizabeth and Saint Catherine, including flooded streets, a hospital roof torn off, and the Rio Cobre overflowing its banks.
- The National Hurricane Center said Melissa weakened to Category 4 late Tuesday as it moved toward Cuba but remained extremely dangerous with life‑threatening surge and torrential rain.
- Fatalities across the Caribbean were reported up to seven in total, with earlier tallies citing deaths in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and pre‑landfall incidents in Jamaica; Jamaica’s prime minister said no deaths were yet confirmed from the storm’s passage and that verification was ongoing.
- Ports and the main airport were closed and hundreds of shelters opened, as the UN prepared airlifts of relief kits and the Red Cross warned as many as 1.5 million people in Jamaica could be directly affected.