Politics
Jamaica’s strongest-ever storm, Hurricane Melissa, turns to Cuba
- Storm leaves hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans without power.
- Parts of western Jamaica come ‘underwater,’ says minister.
- Hurricane Melissa comes after Beryl battered Jamaica last year.
Hurricane Melissa churned toward Cuba’s second-largest city with the force of a powerful Category 4 storm on Tuesday, hours after making landfall in neighboring Jamaica as the strongest-ever cyclone on record to hit that Caribbean island nation.
Melissa roared ashore near Jamaica’s southwestern town of New Hope, packing sustained winds of up to 185 mph (295 kph), according to the US National Hurricane Center, well above the minimum 157 mph (252 kph) wind speed of a Category 5 storm, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.
In southwestern Jamaica, the parish of St Elizabeth was left “underwater,” an official said, with more than 500,000 residents without power.
“The reports that we have had so far would include damage to hospitals, significant damage to residential property, housing and commercial property as well, and damage to our road infrastructure,” Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness said on CNN after the storm had passed.
Holness said the government had not received any confirmed storm-related fatalities, but given the strength of the hurricane and the extent of the damage, “we are expecting that there would be some loss of life.”
Melissa’s winds subsided to 145mph (233kph), the NHC said, as the storm drifted past the mountainous island, lashing highland communities vulnerable to landslides and flooding.
The hurricane was forecast to curve to the northeast on a trajectory toward Santiago de Cuba, Cuba’s second-most populous city.
“We should already be feeling its main influence this afternoon and evening,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a message published in state newspaper Granma, calling on citizens to heed evacuation orders.
“There will be a lot of work to do. We know that this cyclone will cause significant damage.”
Cuban authorities said some 500,000 people were ordered to move to higher ground. In the Bahamas, next in Melissa’s path to the northeast, the government ordered evacuations of residents in southern portions of that archipelago.
Farther to the east, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic had faced days of torrential downpours leading to at least four deaths, authorities there said.
Local media reported at least three deaths in Jamaica during storm preparations, and a disaster coordinator suffered a stroke in the onset of the storm and was rushed to hospital. Late Tuesday, many areas remained cut off.
Jamaica’s ‘storm of the century’
No stranger to hurricanes, Jamaica had never before been known to take a direct hit from a Category 4 or 5 storm, and the government called for foreign aid even as it prepared for Melissa’s arrival.
Meteorologists at AccuWeather said Melissa ranked as the third most intense hurricane observed in the Caribbean after Wilma in 2005 and Gilbert in 1988 – the last major storm to make landfall in Jamaica.
“It’s a catastrophic situation,” the World Meteorological Organisation’s tropical cyclone specialist Anne-Claire Fontan told a press briefing, warning of storm surges up to 4 meters high. “For Jamaica, it will be the storm of the century for sure.”
Colin Bogle, an adviser to aid group Mercy Corps in Portmore, near Jamaica’s capital of Kingston, said he had heard a loud explosion in the morning before everything went dark. Sheltering with his grandmother, he heard relentless noise and saw trees violently tossed in the wind.
“People are scared. Memories of Hurricane Gilbert run deep, and there is frustration that Jamaica continues to face the worst consequences of a climate crisis we did not cause,” he said.
Scientists warn that storms are intensifying faster with greater frequency as a result of warming ocean waters. Many Caribbean leaders have called on wealthy, heavy-polluting nations to provide reparations in the form of aid or debt relief to tropical island countries.
Melissa’s size and strength ballooned as it churned over unusually tepid Caribbean waters, but forecasters warned that its slow movement could prove particularly destructive.
Food aid will be critical, Bogle said, as well as tools, vehicle parts and seeds for farmers. Like last year’s devastating Hurricane Beryl, Melissa crossed over some of Jamaica’s most productive agricultural zones.
On Monday, Holness said the government had an emergency budget of $33 million and insurance and credit provisions for damage a little greater than Beryl.
‘Like a roaring lion’
Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica, near the parish border between Westmoreland and St Elizabeth, one of the areas hardest-hit by Beryl.
St Elizabeth was submerged by flooding, local government minister Desmond McKenzie told a press briefing. Its only public hospital lost power and reported severe damage to one of its buildings.
Several families were known to have been stranded in their homes, but rescue teams managed to reach one group that included four babies, McKenzie said.
In Portland Cottage, some 150 km (94 miles) away from where Melissa made landfall, Collin Henry McDonald, 64, a retiree, told Reuters as the storm advanced that his community was seeing strong rain and winds, but his concrete roof was holding steady.
“It’s like a roaring lion. It’s mad. Really mad,” he said.
Around 15,000 Jamaicans were in temporary shelters by late Tuesday, McKenzie said. The government had issued mandatory evacuation orders for 28,000 people, but many were reluctant to leave their homes.
The International Federation of the Red Cross said up to 1.5 million people in Jamaica were expected to be directly affected by the storm.
- Operation targeted Comando Vermelho drug gang.
- Over 70 corpses recovered by local residents.
- UN urges probe into Brazil police actions.
The deadliest police operation in Brazil’s history killed at least 132 people, officials said on Wednesday, after Rio de Janeiro residents lined a street with dozens of corpses collected overnight, a week ahead of global climate events in the city.
The tally from the Rio public defender’s office was more than double the death toll released on Tuesday, when state authorities reported at least 64 dead, including four police officers. The raids were targeting a major drug gang, the state government said.
Rio Governor Claudio Castro said the initial tally had only counted bodies processed in the public morgue.
Penha residents who went looking for lost relatives had collected many of the corpses from a forested area behind their neighborhood, according to people at the scene, where more than 70 of the bodies were lined up in the middle of the street.
“I just want to take my son out of here and bury him,” said Taua Brito, a mother of one of those killed, surrounded by weeping mourners and onlookers on either side of the long row of bodies, some of which were covered with sheets or bags.
Governor Castro said he was certain those dead from the operation were criminals, as much of the gunfire was in a wooded area. “I don’t think anyone would be walking in the forest on the day of the conflict,” he told reporters.
“The only real victims were the police officers,” he said.
The police operation came days before Rio hosts global events related to the United Nations climate summit known as COP30, including the C40 global summit of mayors tackling climate change and British Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.
Rio has hosted several global events over the past decade, including the 2016 Olympics, the 2024 G20 summit and the BRICS summit in July, without violence on the scale seen on Tuesday.
The Rio state government said the operation was its largest ever to target the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug trade in several favelas – poor and densely populated settlements woven through the city’s hilly oceanside terrain.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who landed in Brasilia late on Tuesday from a trip to Malaysia, has yet to comment on the raids.
He met with Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and cabinet members on Wednesday to discuss the matter, his office said. Lula’s justice minister said on Tuesday the government had not received any request for support from state authorities.
Several civil society groups criticized the heavy casualties of the military-style raid. The UN Human Rights office said it adds to a trend of extreme lethal consequences of police raids in Brazil’s marginalized communities.
“We remind authorities of their obligations under international human rights law, and urge prompt and effective investigations,” it said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump appeared to close the door on seeking a third term in office, acknowledging that the Constitution bars him from running again after his current term ends in January 2029.
“If you read it, it’s pretty clear — I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday en route to South Korea, signalling a shift from earlier comments in which he declined to definitively rule out another bid.
The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution bars anyone from being elected to the US presidency a third time, but Trump has publicly toyed with the idea since he won a second term in November.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Tuesday that he had discussed the issue with Trump and concluded there was no viable path to amend the Constitution in time to allow a third term. “It’s been a great run,” Johnson said. “But I think the president knows, and he and I have talked about, the constrictions of the Constitution.”
Johnson noted that the amendment process would require two-thirds approval in Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states, a process he estimated could take a decade. “I don’t see the path for that,” he added.
Trump’s allies, including former strategist Steve Bannon, have floated legal theories challenging the two-term limit established by the 22nd Amendment.
Trump has referenced the idea at rallies and sells “Trump 2028” merchandise, though Johnson characterised it as political theatre. “He has a good time with that, trolling the Democrats whose hair is on fire about the very prospect,” Johnson said.
Trump, 79, also pointed earlier this week to Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential Republican contenders for the 2028 election. If he were to run again, Trump would be 82, making him the oldest president in US history.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said he had instructed the military to launch “powerful strikes” in Gaza, accusing Hamas of breaching the ongoing ceasefire agreement in the enclave.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office did not provide specific details regarding the alleged violation.
However, an Israeli military official claimed Hamas had attacked Israeli forces in a zone under Israel’s control, calling it “another clear breach of the ceasefire.”
Earlier, Netanyahu had also accused Hamas of failing to return the correct remains during the process of transferring the bodies of Israeli hostages.
Hamas had initially announced that it would hand over the body of a missing hostage discovered in a tunnel in Gaza, but later postponed the handover, saying Israel had already violated the ceasefire terms.
Reports from Israeli media suggested clashes took place between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters in Rafah, though the Israeli military has not commented on those accounts.
Hamas, for its part, said it was adhering to the ceasefire agreement and accused Netanyahu of “seeking pretexts” to avoid fulfilling Israel’s commitments.
A U.S.-backed ceasefire is in force between Israel and Hamas, but each side has accused the other of violations.
Under the ceasefire terms, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and war-time detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.
Hamas has also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve the bodies in the enclave, which has been devastated by two years of war. Israel says Hamas can access the remains of most of the hostages.
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