A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz in Jamaica\u2019s St. Elizabeth parish, where wind ripped off part of the roof at a high school that serves as a public shelter.<\/p>\n
More than 25,000 people remained crowded into shelters across the western half of the country on Thursday<\/a>, and 77% of the island was without power. Government workers and residents were clearing roads to try to reach isolated communities that sustained a direct hit, and authorities said they found at least four bodies in southwest Jamaica.<\/p>\n \u201cThe devastation is enormous,\u201d Jamaican Transportation Minister Daryl Vaz said.<\/p>\n In Cuba, people began to clear blocked roads and highways with heavy equipment while the military helped rescue people trapped in isolated communities at risk from landslides.<\/p>\n Landslides and deforestation<\/p>\n About half of Jamaica is considered at high risk of landslides, with 30% at very high risk, due to hilly and mountainous terrain, volcanic soils and earthquake activity. The island is one of the most susceptible to landslides in the Caribbean, an AP analysis of NASA data shows<\/a>. <\/p>\n Jamaica lost 7.4% of its tree cover from 2001-2024, primarily driven by permanent land conversion for agriculture, according to data from Global Forest Watch. In about the same period, from 2002-2024, humid primary forest accounted for one-fifth of the total tree-cover loss \u2014 \u201cespecially relevant because those are old-growth forests (and) once they\u2019re gone, it\u2019s just going to take a very long time for them to recover,\u201d said Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch.<\/p>\n The loss of vegetation near waterways also makes floods more \u201cflashy,\u201d or fast-moving, putting people\u2019s lives and homes at risk because \u201cthey\u2019re not able to get out fast enough,\u201d said Maria Uriarte, a professor of ecology, evolution, and environmental biology at Columbia University. \u201cThat is extremely dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Residents walk in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa in El Cobre, Cuba, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ramon Espinosa)<\/p>\n Residents walk in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa in El Cobre, Cuba, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ramon Espinosa)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n The threat of big storms and floods is increasing in the entire Caribbean due to climate change, she said, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water and warmer oceans provide fuel that supercharges hurricanes.<\/p>\n Experts said some parts of the ocean under Melissa were 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the long-term average for this time of year, allowing the storm to undergo extreme rapid intensification.<\/p>\n But even in the absence of hurricanes, the Caribbean is becoming more vulnerable to flooding and landslides because of an increasing pattern of very heavy rains followed by drought, said Leotaud, from the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it becomes so common … to have flooding events just with the slightest bit of rain,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n That also makes hurricanes even more dangerous, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAround the region everybody is just very fearful every hurricane season,\u201d Leotaud said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s just so traumatized every year.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa pummeled areas of the Caribbean already vulnerable to landslides and flash flooding because of factors made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[6115,94790,3898,3477,442,94787,18,94788,440,24500,3334,19,17,94786,1371,94789,10734,133,14513,443],"class_list":{"0":"post-164206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-caribbean","9":"tag-caribbean-sea","10":"tag-climate","11":"tag-climate-and-environment","12":"tag-climate-change","13":"tag-daryl-vaz","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-elizabeth-goldman","16":"tag-environment","17":"tag-forests","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-landslides-and-mudslides","22":"tag-natural-disasters","23":"tag-nicole-leotaud","24":"tag-oceans","25":"tag-science","26":"tag-trees","27":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115497114562830894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n