Hurricane Melissa Update - Press Conference | United Nations

Briefing remotely from the Caribbean, the United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinators in Haiti and Cuba reported widespread damage on the wake from Hurricane Melissa. Reporting from Havana, the Resident Coordinator for Cuba, Francisco Pichon, said, “Melissa is now classified as one of the three most powerful hurricanes ever recorded in Cuba, the strongest worldwide in 2025 so far. And it made, landfall, directly in the province of Santiago de Cuba, and for six hours it battered eastern Cuba with very heavy torrential rains and sustained winds in addition to 200 kilometres per hour.” Pichon said, “the needs far exceed the response capacity of the country,” noting that “the eastern territories hit by Melissa are also the same areas devastated a year ago by Hurricane Oscar and two earthquakes for which the UN is implementing and underfunded recovery plan.” He told journalists in New York that “due to the blockade and the sanctions, the country is excluded from international financial institutions and also from many global markets. And this makes it very difficult for the country to finance disaster response.” From Port-au-Prince, the Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim for Haiti, Gregoire Goodstein, said over the last several days, Melissa “swept across Haiti's southern departments, and it moved gradually north at a very slow speed, which brought torrential rains, flash floods and, of course, landslides.” Unfortunately, Goodstein said, “a number of lives were lost, homes were damaged as well as destroyed. Roads have been cut off and, and many families have been displaced.” The death toll, he said, “now stands at 24 people who have died.” Goodstein said having had funding in advance, “which allowed for preparedness and planning, made a real difference.” He said, “by October 22nd the UN agencies were able to deploy a lot of resources, communities were mobilised, emergency stocks were transported and put into place. We had a few hundred evacuation shelters that were also opened, cleaned up, made ready to function. You have to keep in mind a lot of the families, when they left their homes, they prioritised women and children to be put in those evacuation shelters.” Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica on Wednesday as a category 5 storm before moving north as a category 3.


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