Rescuers and aid workers fanned out across Jamaica to distribute food and water, reaching communities still isolated four days after Hurricane Melissa hit the island.

Essential relief supplies are now rolling into hurricane-stricken St Elizabeth and Westmoreland on Saturday (November 1, 2025), most of which had been cut off by fallen concrete posts and trees strewn across roads.

However, in some areas, people were forced to dip buckets into rivers, collecting the muddy water for everyday use, while others drank coconut water and roasted breadfruit.

In Westmoreland, mangled metal sheets, splintered wooden frames of houses and fragments of furniture littered the coastline.

Social Security Minister Pearnel Charles Jr was among several convoys of emergency responders en route to deliver ready-to-eat meals, water, tarpaulins, blankets, medicine and other essentials.

“The priority now is to get help to those who need it,” said Charles Jr during a brief stop en route to Black River for the first time with long-awaited relief supplies. Prime Minister Andrew Holness had declared Black River ground zero and said the town will have to be rebuilt.

The Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) set up a satellite disaster relief site at the Luana community centre near Black River where care packages are being dispatched to hurricane-stricken residents.

Many have been without vital supplies since Tuesday and quickly converged around a JDF truck as word spread that relief supplies were being distributed in the sweltering afternoon sun.

“Everyone is homeless right now,” Rosemarie Gayle said. “Thank you, thank you. I can’t say thank you enough,” she said, as she accepted a package of rice, beans, sardines, powdered milk, cooking oil and other essentials.

Hurricane Melissa has left devastation in its wake, snapping power lines and toppling buildings, disrupting food and water distribution and destroying crop fields.

Some people have been walking for miles in search of basic goods and to check on loved ones, as more than 60% of the island remained without power. Helicopters have been dropping food in cut-off communities.

“People are in shock and they’re waiting on relief,” said World Vision’s national director of domestic humanitarian and emergency affairs Mike Bassett, who travelled to the town of Santa Cruz in St Elizabeth on Friday.

“The biggest needs are clean water, tarps for roof damage, canned proteins, hygiene and cleaning supplies,” he said.

On Saturday, the United Nations’ World Food Program received 2,000 boxes of emergency food assistance shipped from Barbados, to be distributed in shelters and in the most-affected communities in the St Elizabeth area.

“They will help meet the needs of 6,000 people for one week,” said communications officer for WFP Alexis Masciarelli.

One of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall, Melissa has been blamed for at least 28 deaths in Jamaica, and 31 in nearby Haiti.

Health Minister Christopher Tufton recognized that the death toll in Jamaica was probably higher as many places are still hard to access, but said that it would be unwise to speculate.

Tufton also warned about the risk of increased mosquitoes, waterborne diseases and food poisoning. “Please discard spoiled food,” he said.

Melissa made landfall in southwest Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph (295 kph).

A US regional disaster assistance response team was on the ground after being activated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this week, the US Embassy in Jamaica said.

“The United States stands with Jamaica as they respond to the impacts of the hurricane and remains prepared to swiftly deliver emergency relief items,” it said.

Jamaica’s Water and Environment Minister Matthew Samuda took to the social media platform X in a desperate bid to find tarpaulin after Melissa tore off scores of roofs on homes in western Jamaica. X users chimed in to help, indicating where they had seen supplies.

Falmouth, a popular fishing spot on Jamaica’s north coast, had suffered significant damage including flooding and flattened buildings, Holness said on Saturday.

“Our immediate priority is to restore electricity and telecommunications and to ensure that essential services, particularly at the Falmouth Hospital, are stabilised,” he said on X, adding that Jamaica would rebuild “stronger and wiser.” Following the devastation, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) said that it would make a record payout to Jamaica of $70.8 million.

The facility enables countries to pool their individual risks to provide affordable coverage against natural disasters. The payout will be made within 14 days, the group said on Friday.

Finance Minister Fayval Williams said Thursday that the CCRIF insurance policy was just one part of the government’s financial plan to respond to natural disasters. She pointed to a contingencies fund, a national natural disaster reserve and a catastrophe bond.

Government officials have said damage assessment is still ongoing.

Published – November 02, 2025 08:45 am IST

Hurricane Melissa bore down on the Bahamas on Wednesday (October 29, 2025) after cutting a path of destruction through the Caribbean, leaving 30 people dead or missing in Haiti and parts of Jamaica and Cuba in ruins.

Somewhat weakened but still threatening, Melissa will bring damaging winds and flooding rains to the Bahamas on Wednesday (October 29, 2025) before moving on to Bermuda late Thursday (October 30, 2025), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Centre (NHC).

“In the Bahamas, residents should remain sheltered,” it said, while in Bermuda, “preparations should be underway and be completed before anticipated first occurrence of tropical-storm-force winds.”

As Melissa left Cuban shores, residents started assessing their losses, with President Miguel Diaz-Canel quantifying the damage as “extensive.”

In the east of the communist island battling its worst economic crisis in decades, people struggled through flooded and collapsed homes and inundated streets.

The storm smashed windows, downed power cables and mobile communications, and ripped off roofs and tree branches.

Cuban authorities said some 735,000 people had been evacuated — mainly in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Holguin and Guantanamo.

In Santiago de Cuba, homemaker Mariela Reyes, 55, recounted how violent winds lifted the roof off her humble dwelling and dumped it a block away.

She managed to save her TV set and a few small appliances from her flooded home.

“It’s not easy to lose… the little you have,” Ms. Reyes told AFP.

‘Disaster area’

Pope Leo offered prayers from the Vatican, while the United States said it was in contact with the governments of Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

“We have rescue and response teams heading to affected areas along with critical lifesaving supplies,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X, without mentioning ideological foe Cuba.

The U.K. government announced £2.5 million (about $3.3 million) in emergency funding for the region.

In Jamaica, where some parts are still recovering from Hurricane Beryl last year, UN resident coordinator Dennis Zulu told reporters Melissa had brought “tremendous, unprecedented devastation of infrastructure, of property, roads, network connectivity.”

Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the tropical island famed for tourism a “disaster area.”

Many homes were destroyed and about 25,000 people sought refuge in shelters.

“Our teams are on the ground working tirelessly to rescue, restore, and bring relief where it’s needed most… To every Jamaican, hold strong. We will rebuild, we will recover,” Mr. Holness said on X.

Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon told CNN officials had been unable to confirm reports of deaths “because we have not been able to get to some of the hardest hit areas.”

She added work was ongoing to reopen the airport at Montego Bay so an estimated 25,000 tourists caught in the storm “will soon be able to leave if they need to.”

‘Everything is gone’

At least 20 people in southern Haiti, including 10 children, were killed in floods caused by the hurricane that had passed earlier in the week, according to civil defense agency head Emmanuel Pierre. Ten more were missing.

“People have been killed, houses have been swept away by the water,” resident Steeve Louissaint told AFP in the coastal town of Petit-Goave, where the Digue River burst its banks.

Hurricane Melissa tied the 1935 record for the most intense storm ever to make landfall when it battered Jamaica on Tuesday (October 28, 2025), according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In Seaford Town, farmer and businessman Christopher Hacker saw his restaurant and nearby banana plantations flattened.

“Everything is gone,” he told AFP. “It will take a lot to recover from this.”

‘A brutal reminder’

The full extent of Melissa’s damage is not yet clear. A comprehensive assessment could take days with communications networks disrupted across the region.

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said such mega-storms “are a brutal reminder of the urgent need to step up climate action on all fronts, as they bring massive human and economic costs in every part of the world, and those costs grow faster and bigger each year.”

Due to climate change, warmer sea surface temperatures inject more energy into storms, boosting their intensity with stronger winds and more precipitation.

“Human-caused climate change is making all of the worst aspects of Hurricane Melissa even worse,” said climate scientist Daniel Gilford.

Published – October 30, 2025 07:29 am IST