Watch a live view of Hurricane Melissa making landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday (28 October). The storm, which is the most powerful recorded this year, is expected to bring with it up to 40 inches of rain and “life-threatening storm surges” that could peak 13ft above ground level.

Hurricane Melissa left at least dozens dead amid widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and water-logged furniture dominated the landscape Wednesday.

Following renewal of the Security Council’s sanctions regime in Haiti and a resolution to create a new Gang Suppression Force to combat the scourge of gang violence, ambassadors heard this afternoon from the top UN official in the country.

At least 20 people are dead in Haiti and another dozen are missing after a river in the town of Petit-Goâve, southwest of Port-au-Prince, flooded as Hurricane Melissa bombarded the country with heavy rain as it battered nearby Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 storm.

Catastrophic’ storm kills over 30 in the Caribbean as it moves through the Bahamas - Hurricane Melissa is expected to move across the Bahamas on Wednesday evening

Tropical Storm Melissa is expected to bring catastrophic flash flooding and landslides to parts of the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.

More than 735,000 people were evacuated in Cuba by Tuesday night, Oct. 28, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a social media post. In the Bahamas, next in Melissa's path to the northeast, the government ordered evacuations of residents in southern portions of that archipelago.