Hurricane Melissa slammed into the southern coast of eastern Cuba on Wednesday, hours after causing devastation in neighbouring Jamaica as the strongest-ever cyclone on record to hit the Caribbean island nation.
Melissa was last reported about 95 km west-southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba, with maximum sustained winds of 195 kph (120 mph), the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said in its latest update.
The powerful storm had weakened to a Category 3 hurricane since it roared ashore near Jamaica's southwestern town of New Hope, packing sustained winds of up to 295 kph (185 mph), according to the Miami-based forecaster. That was well above the minimum around 252 kph (around 157 mph) wind speed of a Category 5 storm, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.
In southwestern Jamaica, the parish of St. Elizabeth was left "underwater," an official said, with more than 500,000 residents without power.
"The reports that we have had so far would include damage to hospitals, significant damage to residential property, housing and commercial property as well, and damage to our road infrastructure," Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness said on CNN after the storm had passed.
Holness said the government had not received any confirmed storm-related fatalities, but given the strength of the hurricane and the extent of the damage, "we are expecting that there would be some loss of life."
Melissa's winds subsided to 233 kph (145 mph), the NHC said, as the storm drifted past the mountainous island, lashing highland communities vulnerable to landslides and flooding.
Cuban authorities said some 500,000 people were ordered to move to higher ground. In the Bahamas, next in Melissa's path to the northeast, the government ordered evacuations of residents in southern portions of that archipelago.
Farther to the east, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic had faced days of torrential downpours leading to at least four deaths, authorities there said.
Local media reported at least three deaths in Jamaica during storm preparations, and a disaster coordinator suffered a stroke at the onset of the storm and was rushed to the hospital. Late on Tuesday, many areas remained cut off.
