International aid is being sent to Caribbean countries on Friday devastated by Hurricane Melissa, which killed about 50 people in Haiti and Jamaica.
• Also read: Hurricane Melissa approaches Bermuda, killing at least 30 people in Haiti
• Also read: PICTURES | Jamaicans face devastation after Hurricane Melissa
Houses in ruins, flooded neighborhoods, communications cut off… It's time to assess the damage caused by Melissa, which should now weaken over the North Atlantic after passing Bermuda.
Flooding in the Bahamas is expected to subside, but flooding could remain severe in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Made even more destructive by global warming, the hurricane became the most powerful in 90 years when it hit Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with winds of about 300 km/h.
“The confirmed death toll now stands at 19,” including nine on the western tip of the island, Jamaica's Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon was quoted as saying by local media on Thursday evening.
Many residents are still unable to contact their loved ones, authorities said. The Jamaican Army is working to clear blocked roads, according to the government.
“There has been enormous, unprecedented destruction of infrastructure, property, roads, communications and energy networks,” Dennis Zulu, the UN coordinator for several countries in the Caribbean, said from Kingston. “Our preliminary assessments show that the country has been devastated at levels never before seen.”
“Melissa” “killed us”
In Haiti, which was not directly hit by the hurricane but was hit by heavy rains, at least 30 people, including 10 children, were killed and 20 were missing, according to the latest government report released Thursday. Twenty-three of these deaths were due to river flooding in the southwest of the country.
In Cuba, telephone and road communications remain largely unstable.
In El Cobre, in the southwest of the communist island, the sound of hammers can be heard under the returning sun as those whose roofs were torn off try to repair it with the help of friends and neighbors, AFP notes.
“Melissa” “killed us, leaving us devastated,” Felicia Correa, who lives in southern Cuba near El Cobre, told AFP. “We were already going through enormous difficulties. Now, obviously, our situation is much worse.”
According to Cuban authorities, about 735,000 people were evacuated.
First aid
Internationally promised aid is reaching the devastated area.
The United States has mobilized aid teams in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Bahamas, a State Department official said. Teams were also sent to Haiti.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also indicated that Cuba, an ideological enemy, is included in the American system.
Venezuela sent its Cuban ally 26 thousand tons of humanitarian aid.
This was stated by the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Emergency kits, water purification plants: France plans to deliver emergency humanitarian aid to Jamaica “in the coming days” by sea, the Foreign Ministry says.
The UK has provided emergency financial assistance of £2.5 million (€2.8 million) for affected countries.
Human-caused climate change has made the storm more powerful and destructive, according to a study published Tuesday by climatologists at Imperial College London.
“Every climate disaster is a tragic reminder of the urgent need to limit every fraction of a degree of warming caused mainly by burning too much coal, oil and gas,” said Simon Still, the UN's executive secretary for climate change, when the major UN climate conference COP30 opens in Brazil in a few days.
According to the UN-mandated climate panel IPCC, as the ocean surface warms, the frequency of the most intense cyclones (or hurricanes or typhoons) increases, but not the total number of them.
