2h ago
07.00 GMT
Summary
It’s 2am
in Jamaica and in case you’re just joining us, here’s a rundown on the latest
news as Hurricane Melissa moves closer to making landfall in Jamaica.
Jamaican
officials called on the public to get to higher ground and shelters on Monday
evening ahead of the category 5 hurricane, with prime minister Andrew Holness
warning it could be a massively destructive storm – the island’s most violent
on record.
The storm
was on track to make landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, with forecasters saying it
could cause catastrophic destruction from flooding, winds and landslides.
The storm
was set to go ashore in Cuba later on Tuesday and then head toward the Bahamas.
Melissa
has been blamed for seven deaths in the northern Caribbean as it moved towards
Jamaica.
The US
National Hurricane Centre said the storm was “potentially catastrophic” and
that “multiple life-threatening hazards” were in play in Jamaica. Among them
was up to 13 feet (four metres) of storm surge inundation on parts of the south
coast.
Melissa
was centred about 155 miles (245km) south-west of Kingston on Monday night
local time. The system had maximum sustained winds of 175mph (280km/h) and was
moving north-west at 2mph (4km/h), the US National Hurricane Centre said. At
category 5 – the top of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale – Melissa would be
the strongest hurricane on record to hit Jamaica directly.
Parts of
eastern Jamaica could see up to 30 inches (76cm) of rain, the centre said,
citing the likelihood of “catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides”.
Mandatory
evacuations were ordered in flood-prone communities in Jamaica but some people
insisted on staying. Jamaican government officials said they were worried that
fewer than 1,000 people were in the more than 130 shelters open across the
island.
Several
towns on Jamaica’s southern coast reported power outages as winds picked up
throughout the night.
In
eastern Cuba, a hurricane warning was in effect for the Granma, Santiago de
Cuba, Guantánamo and Holguin provinces, while a tropical storm warning was in
effect for Las Tunas. Up to 20 inches (51cm) of rain was forecast for parts of
Cuba, along with a significant storm surge along the coast.
Cuban
officials said they would evacuate more than 600,000 people from the region,
including Santiago, the island’s second-largest city.
With
agencies
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