[Source: Reuters]

Hurricane Melissa barreled through the northern Caribbean on Thursday after thrashing Cuba’s second-biggest city, isolating hundreds of rural communities, unleashing devastation in Jamaica and drenching Haiti, where at least 25 were killed.

Melissa struck Jamaica on Tuesday as the strongest-ever hurricane to directly hit its shores, with sustained winds of 185 mph (298 kph), well above the minimum strength for a Category 5, the strongest classification for hurricanes.

As of 8 p.m. (0000 GMT), Melissa was a Category 1 hurricane bringing wind, rain and storm surges as it moved north-east through the Bahamas archipelago, whose government earlier flew out nearly 1,500 people in what it called one of its largest evacuation operations.

Residents in the Bahamas and nearby Turks and Caicos hunkered down, while some 895 miles (1,440 km) north-east Bermudans prepared for hurricane conditions forecast from Thursday.

U.S. forecaster AccuWeather said Melissa was the Caribbean’s third-most intense recorded hurricane, as well as its slowest-moving, which made it particularly destructive.

The storm did not directly hit Haiti, the Caribbean’s most populous nation, but lashed it with days of rain. Authorities reported at least 25 deaths, largely due to floods in Petit-Goave, a coastal town 64 km (40 miles) west of the capital where a river burst its banks.

At least 10 children were killed and 12 people remain missing there, Haiti’s disaster management agency said, adding that nationwide more than 1,000 homes have been flooded and nearly 12,000 people moved into emergency shelters.

An extended gang conflict has impoverished Haiti and displaced over 1.3 million. People living in makeshift camps said the flooding made it impossible to sit or sleep, and that the government and aid groups were slow to bring supplies.

Fortune Vital, a displaced man in Les Cayes, said he was separated from his family which already lacked sufficient food. “If the hurricane comes on top of all the problems we already have, we’ll simply die,” he said.

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