Kingston, Jamaica — Storm-battered communities across western Jamaica were in crisis on Sunday, five days after Hurricane Melissa roared ashore as a record-setting Category 5, flattening towns and severing lifelines across the island.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the national death toll has climbed to 28, up from 19, adding on X late Saturday that authorities are “verifying additional reports of possible fatalities.” Melissa is also blamed for at least 31 deaths in Haiti, including 10 children who drowned in flooding, with further damage reported in Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Making landfall Tuesday with sustained winds of 185 mph (300 kph) — the most intense Jamaican landfall in 90 years — Melissa tore through western parishes, including Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth. In Whitehouse, homes were crushed or roofless, power poles snapped, and trees stripped bare. Many communities remain cut off, with electricity and phone service still down across wide areas, complicating search-and-rescue and damage assessments.
Hospitals, businesses, schools and thousands of homes have been damaged or destroyed. With roads blocked and communications patchy, officials cautioned that the fatality count could rise as rescue teams reach isolated districts.
In a stark economic warning from Panama City, Nahuel Arenas, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) for the Americas and the Caribbean, said economic losses in Jamaica could approach the country’s annual GDP (about $20 billion in 2024), calling the projected burden “heavy and long-lasting” for Jamaicans and the region.
The World Health Organization and partner agencies have deployed medical teams, while the United States said federal emergency responders are on the ground. UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the “mobilization of massive resources” and announced an initial $4 million allocation from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to scale up humanitarian operations.
- Authorities are prioritizing restoration of power and telecommunications, clearing arteries to reach isolated communities, and bolstering water, food and medical supply chains.
- Damage assessments will guide a larger international appeal in the coming days.
- Jamaicans in affected areas are urged to follow local advisories and use official shelters where available.
With entire towns reeling and infrastructure shredded, officials say Jamaica is only at the beginning of a long recovery from a storm that reshaped the island’s coastline — and its economy — in a matter of hours
