• Jamaicans, Cubans, brace for direct impact.
• Across Caribbean, hundreds of thousands evacuate.
• Four deaths reported in Haiti and Dominican Republic.

Hurricane Melissa was packing sustained winds of up to 175 mph (282 kph) on Monday afternoon, as the slow-moving Category 5 storm was on course to barrel into Jamaica, in what could be the largest on record for the Caribbean island.

As of 2pm (1800 GMT), Melissa was a “catastrophic” storm, the strongest possible on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the US National Hurricane Centre. The NHC expects Melissa to move over Jamaica late Monday or in the early hours of Tuesday, cross eastern Cuba the following night and move over the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos by Wednesday.

The storm’s slow movement over unusually tepid Caribbean water had contributed to its ballooning size and strength, NHC forecasters said, threatening Jamaica with days of never-before-seen catastrophic winds and as much as 3 feet of rain.

Melissa’s wind span is currently larger than the length of Jamaica, an island roughly the size of Connecticut and whose main airports sit very close to sea level.

Hours after ordering mandatory evacuations for parts of southern Jamaica, including the historic town of Port Royal, Prime Minister Andrew Holness called on foreign support and warned of damage to farmlands, homes and infrastructure such as bridges, roads, ports and airports.

Despite warnings, some residents told Reuters they were reluctant to leave their homes for fear of looting, and authorities said buses were waiting to be filled up and transport some 28,000 affected by mandatory evacuation orders.

“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5,” he said.

Holness said his government was as prepared as can be, with an emergency response budget of $33 million and insurance and credit provisions for damage a little larger than those sustained from last year’s devastating Hurricane Beryl.

Beryl was the earliest and fastest Atlantic hurricane on record to reach Category 5, but scientists warn that storms are becoming stronger and faster as a result of climate change, warming ocean waters, and piling up fuel for seasonal storms.

“Tens of thousands of families are facing hours of extreme wind gusts above 100 mph and days of relentless, torrential rainfall,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter, adding that infrastructure damage could hamper the arrival of aid.

“Slow-moving major hurricanes often go down in history as some of the deadliest and most destructive storms on record,” he added. “This is a dire situation unfolding in slow motion.”

Jamaica has seen many large hurricanes in the past, including Category 4 Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, but a direct hit from a Category 5 would be unprecedented, said Evan Thompson, of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service.

Melissa is moving much slower than Gilbert, Jamaica’s last major direct hit, Porter added, warning people should prepare to hunker down for days, and some communities could be cut off for weeks.

‘We can’t move’

Damian Anderson, a teacher from Hagley Gap, a town nestled in Jamaica’s soaring Blue Mountains, said impassable roads had already cut off his community.

“We can’t move,” Anderson, 47, said. “We’re scared. We’ve never seen a multi-day event like this before.”

Nearby Haiti and the Dominican Republic have already faced days of torrential downpours leading to at least four deaths, authorities in those island nations said.

In Haiti, impoverished by years of gang violence, more than 3,650 residents in the southern parts of the country moved into temporary shelters, authorities said, as they suspended flights to and from the southern peninsula and banned sailing.

Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis also ordered evacuations for people in the southern and eastern parts of the archipelago, while much of eastern Cuba battened down ahead of Melissa’s expected landfall.

Cuban authorities said they had evacuated upwards of 500,000 people living in coastal and mountainous areas vulnerable to heavy winds and flooding, and cancelled schools and transport across eastern Cuba.

More than 250,000 people were brought to shelters around Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city, which lies squarely in the crosshairs of the hurricane’s predicted path.

WASHINGTON: Air travel turmoil deepened with more than 4,300 flights delayed nationwide on Monday following more than 8,800 delays on Sunday, with air traffic controller absences surging as the federal government shutdown reached its 27th day.

The Federal Aviation Administration cited staffing shortages affecting flights across the Southeast and at Newark Airport in New Jersey, while the agency imposed a ground stop at Austin Airport in Texas and a ground delay program at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport that delayed flights by an average of 18 minutes.

Southwest Airlines LUV.N had 47%, or 2,089, of its flights delayed on Sunday, while American Airlines AAL.O had 1,277, or 36%, of its flights delayed, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking website. United Airlines UAL.O had 27%, or 807, of its flights delayed and Delta Air Lines DAL.N had 21%, or 725, of its flights delayed.

Roughly 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers must work without pay. The Trump administration has warned that flight disruptions will increase as controllers miss their first full paycheck on Tuesday.

On Monday, Southwest had 24% of flights delayed, American 18% and Delta 13% as of 5:00 p.m. ET (2100 GMT), according to FlightAware.

A US Department of Transportation official said 44% of Sunday’s delays stemmed from controller absences — up sharply from the usual 5%.

The mounting delays and cancellations are fueling public frustration and intensifying scrutiny of the shutdown’s impact, raising pressure on lawmakers to resolve the budget impasse.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was in Cleveland meeting with controllers on Monday, while the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union plans events at numerous airports on Tuesday to highlight the first missed paycheck.

The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of targeted staffing levels and many had been working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks even before the shutdown.

In 2019, during a 35-day shutdown, the number of absences by controllers and TSA officers rose as workers missed paychecks, extending wait times at some airport checkpoints. Authorities were forced to slow air traffic in New York and Washington.

• US-backed plan aims to stabilise fragile Gaza ceasefire.
• Israel rejects Turkish troop participation under Trump’s plan.
• Netanyahu says Tel Aviv will decide which forces enter Gaza.

The Israeli lawmakers have been told that troops from Pakistan would likely be part of the international force in Gaza, alongside soldiers from Indonesia and Azerbaijan, a media report claimed.

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee members were told during a closed-door briefing last week, according to a report in the Ynet news site.

It further stated that a US-backed international force to stabilise security in Gaza will include soldiers from the three Muslim countries.

Furthermore, Indonesia has publicly offered to send troops for the effort, whereas Azerbaijan had also agreed to contribute soldiers, The Times of Israel reported.

US President Donald Trump’s plan includes an international force in Gaza to help secure a fragile ceasefire, which began this month, halting two years of war between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Israel said earlier today that it won’t accept the presence of Turkish armed forces in Gaza under a US plan to end the war in the Palestinian territory for good.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said today that Israel has not surrendered its right to self-defence as part of the agreement brokered by Washington, Egypt and Qatar.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tel Aviv would decide which foreign forces to allow in Gaza.

But it remains unclear whether Arab and other states will be ready to commit troops to the international force.

While the Trump administration has ruled out sending US soldiers into the Gaza Strip, it has been speaking to Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Azerbaijan to contribute to the multinational force.

— Additional input from Reuters