After pummelling Jamaica, Hurricane Melissa makes landfall in eastern Cuba

Hurricane Melissa was grinding across Cuba on Wednesday as a Category 2 storm after pummelling Jamaica as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated to shelters in Cuba. A hurricane warning was in effect for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas, as well as southeastern and central Bahamas.

Melissa at 8 a.m. ET was packing sustained winds of 165 kilometres per hour and was moving north-northeast at 22 kilometres per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane was centred 70 kilometres northwest of Guantánamo, Cuba, and 335 kilometres south of the central Bahamas.

A man uses a plastic sheet to protect himself from the rain in Santiago de Cuba. Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba early Wednesday. (Norlys Perez/Reuters)

“That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba. The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing out Wednesday, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain.

Melissa tore off roofs and uprooted trees in the province, but the full extent of damage wasn’t immediately known.

Melissa was forecast to continue weakening after it crossed Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, as it but remain strong as it moves across the southeastern or central Bahamas later Wednesday. It was expected to make its way late Thursday near or to the west of Bermuda. Haiti and the Turks and Caicos also braced for its effects.

WATCH | The conditions that fuelled Melissa:

Hurricane Melissa: a case study in a changing hurricane era

Hurricane Melissa’s Category 5 winds tore into western Jamaica Tuesday morning, marking one of the most powerful Atlantic landfalls ever recorded. CBC’s Johanna Wagstaffe looks at how Melissa may be part of a new hurricane era: storms fuelled by record-warm seas and slowed by a shifting jet stream.

Heavy rains could trigger landslides

The storm was expected to generate a storm surge of up to 3.6 metres in the region and drop up to 51 centimetres of rain in parts of eastern Cuba. The continuing intense rain could cause life-threatening flooding with numerous landslides, forecasters said.

The hurricane could worsen Cuba’s severe economic crisis, which already has led to prolonged power blackouts, fuel shortages and food shortages.

Residents evacuate in pouring rain from Playa Siboney to safe locations in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba on Tuesday. ( Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images )

“There will be a lot of work to do. We know there will be a lot of damage,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel said in a televised address, in which he assured that “no one is left behind and no resources are spared to protect the lives of the population.”

At the same time, he urged the population not to underestimate the power of Melissa, “the strongest ever to hit national territory.”

Provinces from Guantánamo — in the far east — to Camagüey, almost in the centre of elongated Cuba, had already suspended classes on Monday.

As Cuba prepared for the storm, officials in Jamaica prepared to fan out Wednesday to assess the damage from Melissa, which landed with top sustained winds of 295 kilometres per hour.

More than half a million customers were without power late Tuesday.

Extensive damage was reported in parts of Clarendon in southern Jamaica and in the southwestern parish of St. Elizabeth, which was “under water,” said Desmond McKenzie, deputy chairman of Jamaica’s Disaster Risk Management Council.

The storm also damaged four hospitals and left one without power, forcing officials to evacuate 75 patients, McKenzie said.

The government said it hopes to reopen all of Jamaica’s airports as early as Thursday to ensure the quick distribution of emergency relief supplies.

The storm already was blamed for seven deaths in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.