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In Haiti, flooding from Melissa killed at least 25 people in the southern coastal town of Petit-Goâve, its mayor told The Associated Press. Mayor Jean Bertrand Subrème said dozens of homes collapsed when La Digue river burst its banks and people were still trapped under rubble. Only one official from Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency was in the area as residents struggled to evacuate amid heavy floodwaters. Officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off in Cuba on Wednesday, with the heaviest destruction concentrated in the southwest and northwest. Authorities said about 735,000 people remained in shelters. “That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba. The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing out, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain. In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were packed into shelters on Wednesday and more streamed in throughout the day after the storm ripped roofs off their homes and left them temporarily homeless. Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s education minister, said that 77 per cent of the island was without power Wednesday.
