KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The death toll from Hurricane Melissa continues to climb and has now risen to 33 after the record-setting storm tore through Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, and the Bahamas.
Now downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 1 storm, Melissa, on Thursday, gathered speed as it swept through the Bahamas and is expected to make landfall in Bermuda later.
In Jamaica, nine people have been confirmed dead, with five of the deaths recorded in the southern parish of St. Elizabeth.
While in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member state, Haiti, at least 23 deaths have been recorded – 10 of them children – mainly due to flooding after days of relentless rain, despite the country avoiding a direct hit.
The storm also claimed one life in the Dominican Republic.
Melissa, the strongest storm to strike Jamaica in modern history, slammed into the island on Tuesday with sustained winds of 185 mph at its peak – stronger than Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in the United States in 2005, killing 1,392 people.
On leaving Jamaica, the storm, which had then been downgraded to a Category 3, targeted Cuba’s second-largest city, Santiago de Cuba.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the hurricane caused “considerable damage” but did not provide a casualty figure.
In The Bahamas, nearly 1,500 people were evacuated from vulnerable areas in what officials described as the country’s largest-ever operation.
While flooding has disrupted parts of the archipelago, the Ministry of Tourism said the majority of the country, including Nassau, Freeport, Eleuthera, and the Abacos, remained largely unaffected and open to visitors.
Authorities in the Bahamas have since lifted hurricane warnings for the central and southern islands, as well as for the Turks and Caicos.
On Thursday morning, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Melissa is moving toward the north-northeast near 21 mph (33 km/h) and is expected to continue accelerating northeastward over the next couple of days.
On the forecast track, the center of Melissa is expected to pass to the northwest of Bermuda later on Thursday or early Friday.
Maximum sustained winds are near 105 miles per hour, as a Category 2 storm.
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