A woman looks out from inside a house on Wednesday after Hurricane Melissa made landfall, in Alligator Pond, Jamaica. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)

Hurricane Melissa devastates Jamaica: See photos of the aftermath

· Yahoo News

Hurricane Melissa continues to leave catastrophic damage in its wake.

The hurricane made landfall near New Hope, Jamaica, on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm — the strongest in the country’s recorded history — with winds of 185 mph. It then made a second landfall as a Category 3 storm in Cuba on Wednesday morning, leaving behind “extensive damage,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said in a statement.

Melissa, now a Category 2 storm, has since moved offshore and is heading for the Bahamas, per an advisory from the National Hurricane Center. It’s expected to pass near the west of Bermuda on Thursday night.

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Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the country a “disaster area” late Tuesday, amid reports of significant damage, including widespread flooding, power outages and blocked roads.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s information minister, said Melissa had left 77% of the island without power. Desmond McKenzie, Jamaica’s minister of local government and community development, also said that more than 25,000 people were in shelters across the island.

“It’s not going to be an easy road, Jamaica,” he said.

Richard Vernon, the mayor of tourist hot spot Montego Bay, told BBC News on Wednesday that the city had been split in two by floodwaters. Though no deaths have been reported there so far, Vernon said his main concern Wednesday morning was to “check if everybody is alive.”

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“Once the wind subsided, we started to get a lot of heavy rain and that has led to massive floods right across the city,” Vernon said. “One side of the city is now cut off from the other due to roads being inundated by flood water.”

While a tropical storm warning has been discontinued for Jamaica, the country’s government warned of the potential for “further flash flooding and additional landslides” through Wednesday night.

Jamaican officials on Wednesday confirmed the island’s first death since Hurricane Melissa made landfall. The storm has been blamed for dozens of deaths across Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

A store stands destroyed in Manchester, Jamaica, on Tuesday. (Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images)
People walk through Santa Cruz, Jamaica, on Wednesday, after Hurricane Melissa passed. (Matias Delacroix/AP)
A damaged car by a fallen tree in Manchester on Tuesday. (Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images)
A man uses a chain saw to clear fallen branches on Wednesday in Spur Tree, Jamaica. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)

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Camilla Powell, 27, and daughter Destiny Ellington, 5, stand outside their home in Alligator Pond, Jamaica, on Wednesday. (Octavio Jones /Reuters)
Parts of the roof of the St. Elizabeth Technical High School are missing in Santa Cruz on Wednesday. (Matias Delacroix/AP)
Residents walk through Santa Cruz on Wednesday. (Matias Delacroix/AP)
People sit on the roof of a vehicle riding on a flooded road in Prospect, Jamaica, on Wednesday. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)

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Debris scattered at a hotel on Wednesday in Montego Bay, Jamaica. (Sandra Stojanovic/Reuters)
Drone view of flooding in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, on Wednesday. (Maria Alejandra Cardona/Reuters)
People inspect the damage in Spur Tree on Wednesday. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)
A man stands on what is left of the roof of his neighbor’s house in St. Elizabeth on Wednesday. (Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images)

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