Recovery begins as islands count the dead and cost of Hurricane Melissa
The rumble of large machinery, whine of chainsaws and chopping of machetes echoed through communities across the northern Caribbean on Thursday as they dug out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa and assessed the damage left behind.
In south-eastern Jamaica, government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach dozens of isolated communities that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record.
Stunned residents wandered about, some staring at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings strewn around them.
“I don’t have a house now,” said a distressed Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of Lacovia in the southern parish of St Elizabeth, as he held onto his bicycle, the only possession of value left after the storm.
Emergency relief flights began landing at Jamaica’s main international airport, which reopened late on Wednesday, as crews distributed water, food and other basic supplies.
Helicopters thrummed above communities where the storm flattened homes, wiped out roads and destroyed bridges, cutting them off from assistance.
“The entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened,” education minister Dana Morris Dixon said.
Authorities said they have found at least four bodies in south-west Jamaica.
Desmond McKenzie, deputy chairman of Jamaica’s disaster risk management council, declined to provide an update on the number of deaths, saying only that he expects the number to increase based on information he has received.
More than 13,000 people remained crowded into shelters, with 72% of the island without power and only 35% of mobile phone sites in operation, officials said.
“We understand the frustration, we understand your anxiety, but we ask for your patience,” said Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s telecommunications and energy minister.
Water trucks have been mobilised to serve many of Jamaica’s rural communities that are not connected to the government’s utility system, water minister Matthew Samuda said.
In Cuba, heavy equipment began to clear blocked roads and highways and the military helped rescue people trapped in isolated communities and at risk from landslides.
No deaths were reported after the civil defence authority evacuated more than 735,000 people across eastern Cuba ahead of the storm. They slowly were starting to return home.
Melissa also unleashed catastrophic flooding in Haiti, where at least 25 people were reported killed and 18 others missing, mostly in the country’s southern region.
“It is a sad moment for the country,” said Laurent Saint-Cyr, president of Haiti’s transitional presidential council.
He said officials expect the death toll to rise and noted that the government is mobilising all its resources to search for people and provide emergency relief.
Haiti’s civil protection agency said Hurricane Melissa killed at least 20 people, including 10 children, in Petit-Goave, where more than 160 homes were damaged and 80 others destroyed.
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