Jessica Rawnsleyand
Gabriela Pomeroy
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Residents and holidaymakers have described their terror as Hurricane Melissa pummelled Jamaica, the strongest storm to hit the Caribbean nation in modern history.
Locals and tourists told the BBC how they hunkered down as the storm ripped roofs off buildings and cut power to about a third of the country’s 2.8 million people.
“The doors are being blown off by the wind,” said Kabien, a mother-of-three who runs a beauty salon in the town of Santa Cruz.
With panic in her voice, she said: “I am trying to use my own manpower to stop the wind blowing in the door.”
Watch: Strong winds and flying debris as Hurricane Melissa makes landfall
“There is water coming through the roof of the house,” she said. “I am not OK.”
Her three young children were “very, very scared”, she added.
Melissa made landfall on Tuesday afternoon in south-western Jamaica near the town of New Hope with wind speeds of 185 mph (295 km/h), according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Originally a category five storm, it was downgraded to category three after it made landfall and swept across the island.
Officials said it would continue to decrease in intensity, but remain extremely dangerous as it moves towards Cuba and then the Bahamas.
Kyle Holmes, from Bolton, who is visiting Jamaica with his wife and young daughters, aged 7, 10, and 12, for a family wedding, told the BBC of the devastation wreaked by the storm.
He said the hotel he was staying in – the Grand Palladium Resort, in the town of Lucea, half an hour from Montego
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