SANTIAGO DE CUBA – Hurricane Melissa bore down on the Bahamas Wednesday Thursday Manila time) after cutting a path of destruction through the Caribbean, leaving 30 people dead or missing in Haiti and parts of Jamaica and Cuba in ruins.
Somewhat weakened but still threatening, Melissa will bring damaging winds and flooding rains to the Bahamas Wednesday before moving on to Bermuda late Thursday, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
“In the Bahamas, residents should remain sheltered,” it said, while in Bermuda, “preparations should be underway and be completed before anticipated first occurrence of tropical-storm-force winds.”
As Melissa left Cuban shores, residents started assessing their losses, with President Miguel Diaz-Canel quantifying the damage as “extensive.”
In the east of the communist island battling its worst economic crisis in decades, people struggled through flooded and collapsed homes and inundated streets.
The storm smashed windows, downed power cables and mobile communications, and ripped off roofs and tree branches.
Cuban authorities said some 735,000 people had been evacuated — mainly in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Holguin and Guantanamo.
In Santiago de Cuba, homemaker Mariela Reyes, 55, recounted how violent winds lifted the roof off her humble dwelling and dumped it a block away.
She managed to save her TV set and a few small appliances from her flooded home.
“It’s not easy to lose… the little you have,” Reyes told AFP.
