Santo Domingo.– Hurricane Melissa will continue to cause heavy downpoursflash floods and landslides in the southwestern region of Dominican Republic during the next few days, especially in the provinces of Barahona, Pedernales and Independencia, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the United States.
In Haiti, rains will continue to cause extensive damage in infrastructure and isolation of communities between Tuesday and Wednesday, as the phenomenon slowly moves through the area.
NHC experts warned that the most severe damage will be recorded from Monday night in Jamaica, where the hurricane’s catastrophic winds could cause total structural failures, especially in mountainous areas. In addition, landslides pose a serious threat between Monday night and Tuesday morning.
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The report states that Melissa’s passage will leave extensive damage in infrastructure, prolonged power and communication outages, and storm surges with destructive waves along the southern Jamaican coast until Tuesday.
In Cuba, heavy rains are expected with potentially catastrophic flash floods and landslides since Monday, as well as storm surges and hurricane-force winds that have threatened human lives since Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, in the southeast of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islandshurricane conditions could be recorded between Wednesday and Thursday, with dangerous storm surge and heavy rain. The NHC urged residents to follow the guideliness from local authorities and complete their emergency preparations by Tuesday night.
This Monday afternoon, Melissa maintained maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h), with stronger gusts, making it a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
The eye of the hurricane was moving slowly west-northwest at about 6 km/h, with a progressive turn to the northwest and north expected for today, and then to the northeast at greater speed on Tuesday.
On its forecast track, Melissa’s core will move over Jamaica tonight and early Tuesday, then cross southeastern Cuba Tuesday night and approach the southeastern Bahamas on Wednesday.
