Hurricane Melissa slammed into Cuba early on Wednesday, hours after causing devastation in neighbouring Jamaica as the strongest-ever storm on record to hit that Caribbean island nation.
“Extremely dangerous hurricane Melissa makes landfall on southern coast of eastern Cuba,” the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said in an updated advisory.
Despite weakening to a category 3 storm, Melissa struck the province of Santiago de Cuba with maximum sustained winds of around 195km/h (120mph), the NHC said.
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.
“It will be a very difficult night for all of Cuba,” Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned, calling it one of the most powerful storms to ever threaten the island.
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