Mexico City, Oct 30, (dpa/GNA) – Hurricane Melissa strengthened again on Thursday, as it passed beyond the Bahamas, leaving behind a trail of devastation across several Caribbean islands.
The hurricane warning was lifted in the Bahamas early on Thursday, as the powerful storm headed towards Bermuda in the North Atlantic as a Category 2 hurricane.
The Bahamian government had ordered evacuations on six of the country’s more than 700 islands. Around 1,500 people were flown out of threatened areas before air traffic was suspended, according to officials.
Clean-up work is beginning across Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and other island nations that were hit hard by the storm, one of the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic according to meteorologists.
In Jamaica, where Melissa made landfall on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane, at least nine people were killed, Jamaican media reported.
Six were directly killed by the storm while three people died in preparation for its impact.
Images and videos from the affected areas showed destroyed houses, flooded streets and fallen trees. Hospitals, schools, churches and bridges were damaged in many places.
On Wednesday, the international airport in Jamaica’s capital Kingston opened for the first relief flights, said Transport Minister Daryl Vaz. The country’s largest airport, Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, suffered damage but was also due to reopen on Thursday.
According to initial estimates by the private US weather service AccuWeather the total damage and economic losses caused by the storm could amount to between $48 billion and $52 billion.
In Haiti, at least 24 people were killed as a result of the hurricane.
In the western community of Petit Goâve, around 20 people died when a river burst its banks due to persistent rainfall.
Emmanuel Pierre, the head of the Haitian civil defence agency, said at least 18 more people are missing.
Parts of eastern Cuba were also hit hard by Melissa on Wednesday, with many coffee and banana plantations destroyed.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the worst damage was caused by flooding, but there were no fatalities reported. “We are alive,” said Díaz-Canel. “Our victory is life.”
One person is also reported to have died in the Dominican Republic.
Climate scientists say that the likelihood of powerful storms such as Melissa developing is rising due to global warming.
Researchers at Imperial College London have calculated that climate change, has made a hurricane of this strength around four times more likely, while increasing wind speed by about 7%.
At its speak, Melissa’s wind speeds reached almost 300 kilometres per hour.
GNA