Hurricane Melissa, one of the most powerful storms to ever strike the Atlantic basin, carved a path of devastation through the northern Caribbean this week, claiming at least 49 lives across Jamaica and Haiti while leaving Cuba and the Bahamas reeling from its fury. The Category 5 monster made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday with sustained winds of 185 mph (295 kph), tying records for the strongest Atlantic hurricane to hit land in terms of both wind speed and central pressure. Now downgraded to a Category 2 with 105 mph winds, Melissa churned northeast toward Bermuda late Thursday, centred 260 miles (420 km) west-southwest of the British territory and moving at 32 mph (51 kph). As rescue efforts intensify and recovery begins, the storm's toll underscores the escalating threat of climate-amplified hurricanes in a region already strained by poverty and political instability.

In Jamaica, the death toll climbed to 19, including a child, with nine fatalities in the western parish of Westmoreland alone, as confirmed by Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon. Government teams and residents laboured to clear debris-choked roads, aiming to reach dozens of isolated southeastern communities battered by the storm's eye. In St Elizabeth's Lacovia, survivor Sylvester Guthrie clutched his bicycle amid the ruins of his roofless home, voicing the despair echoing across the island: "I don’t have a house now." Over 13,000 people huddled in shelters, 72% of the nation remained powerless, and mobile coverage lingered at just 35%. Emergency flights delivered water, medicine, and food to the hardest-hit areas, where helicopters air-dropped supplies over flattened villages, collapsed bridges, and severed highways. U.S. search-and-rescue teams, including canine units, arrived to aid in recovering bodies, such as one tangled in a tree, as officials braced for a rising toll amid long queues at scarce fuel stations and supermarkets.

Haiti's southern peninsula bore the brunt of Melissa's flooding wrath, with at least 30 confirmed deaths—20 in Petit-Goâve alone, including 10 children—and 20 more missing, according to the Civil Protection Agency and Transitional Presidential Council President Laurent Saint-Cyr. In the coastal town, over 160 homes lay damaged and 80 obliterated, stranding 15,000 in shelters and leaving survivors like Steven Guadard to mourn entire families swept away, including four young children. Michelet Dégange, now homeless after three years in the area, captured the anguish: "There is no place to rest the body; we are hungry... I haven’t closed my eyes since the bad weather began." Authorities mobilised for searches and relief, but Haiti's fragile infrastructure—exacerbated by ongoing gang violence and a presidential assassination in 2021—hampered responses, turning streets into rivers and compounding a humanitarian crisis where 5.4 million already face acute food insecurity.

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Cuba's eastern provinces, particularly Santiago de Cuba's El Cobre, emerged relatively unscathed thanks to a massive evacuation of 735,000 residents, averting any fatalities as heavy machinery cleared landslides and blocked roads. Retiree Odalys Ojeda surveyed her collapsed home, where zinc roofs peeled away like paper: "So much wind... It was a disaster." The revered Basilica of Our Lady of Charity, a spiritual beacon for Catholics and Santería devotees, sustained damage to its stained glass, carpentry, and masonry, as noted by Father Rogelio Dean Puerta. Power outages persisted, but the military's swift rescues highlighted Cuba's vaunted civil defence system. In a rare diplomatic thaw, the U.S. State Department offered humanitarian aid "directly and through local partners", amid decades of sanctions, without detailing coordination with Havana. The Bahamas, brushed by Melissa's southern fringes, evacuated 1,400 from southeast islands, reporting no deaths but widespread disruptions.

As Melissa approaches Bermuda—where the airport shuttered Thursday evening and schools closed Friday—the U.S. National Hurricane Center forecasts potential restrengthening before a Friday decline. The storm's rapid intensification, fuelled by record ocean heat linked to global warming, has prompted renewed calls for resilient infrastructure in vulnerable small-island states. In Jamaica, Education Minister Dixon lamented, "The entirety of Jamaica is really broken," while Telecommunications Minister Daryl Vaz urged patience amid frustrations. Water Minister Matthew Samuda deployed trucks to rural areas off the grid. With international aid pouring in and forecasts tracking the hurricane's path, the Caribbean's focus shifts from survival to rebuilding, a herculean task in nations where tourism and remittances form economic lifelines now severed by Melissa's gales.

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