At least 2 dozen dead as Hurricane Melissa hurtles through Cuba, Haiti

Experts say Melissa, now a Category 2 hurricane, is expected to bring dangerous winds, flooding and storm surges to the Bahamas on Thursday, followed by Bermuda.

The devastating impacts of Hurricane Melissa continue to be felt after the record-breaking storm, which first hit Jamaica, then tore through Cuba and Haiti on Wednesday, left more than two dozen people dead and 18 missing across the Caribbean, according to The Associated Press.

The Category 5 storm, with winds approaching 300 kilometres per hour when it made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, devastated homes, flooded roads, uprooted trees and toppled power lines before moving on to eastern Cuba, where the full extent of the damage is still being assessed and 735,000 people remain in shelters, according to officials.

Despite weakening between hitting Jamaica on Tuesday and arriving in Cuba on Wednesday, the storm scattered roofs and flooded homes in the country’s second-largest city, Santiago de Cuba, leaving mountain roads blocked and downed power lines in its wake.

The most significant destruction was concentrated in the southwest and northwest of the island, the AP reported.

“That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba told the outlet.

Data from the UN aid co-ordination office (OCHA) found that Melissa ranked among the most intense storms to hit Cuba in decades, with winds reaching nearly 222 km/h and rainfall totals exceeding 145 millimetres over a two-day period.

Meanwhile, in Haiti, at least 25 people have died and 18 are missing as a result of the storm, the country’s Civil Protection Agency said in a statement Wednesday, according to the AP.

Twenty of those reported dead in Haiti and 10 of the missing are from a southern coastal town where flooding collapsed dozens of homes.