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  • 3 weeks ago
Western Jamaica is in ruins  — flattened by the force of Hurricane Melissa. Rescue operations are slow and grueling as military teams cut their way into isolated communities. Communications are down, power is out across most of the island, and the recovery effort is now shifting from rescue to relief.

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00:00Western Jamaica is in ruins tonight, flattened by the force of Hurricane Melissa.
00:06Rescue operations are slow and grueling as military teams cut their way into isolated communities.
00:12Communications are down, power is out across most of the island,
00:17and the recovery effort is now shifting from rescue to relief.
00:22The entire nation of Jamaica is reeling from the devastation in the West,
00:28where Hurricane Melissa left a trail of destruction.
00:32The military now has boots on the ground, making slow, manual progress into the hardest-hit areas.
00:38They are cutting their way on foot through blocked roads by foot.
00:46This is not easy work.
00:48So they were able to get to Black River through a lot of very difficult work and difficult conditions.
00:57And they've had to be cutting through, and they've had to pull them out, use equipment,
01:03sometimes it's machetes that they're using to get through them.
01:07And there are hundreds of bamboo plants that they're trying to get through.
01:12They did not finish it last night.
01:14They are back at it this morning to try to clear the road.
01:18Now let me be clear.
01:20That is not full opening of the roadway.
01:23Of the 151 roads reported as affected, 134 remain blocked.
01:3011 have been fully cleared, while 34 are accessible by a single lane.
01:35Patient evacuations continue from the Black River Hospital,
01:38and the grim task of recovering victims of Melissa is still underway.
01:43They have dedicated a helicopter to locate and coordinate the collection of any bodies that may be there.
01:54We get a lot of reports about potential bodies.
01:57We're not sure.
01:59They have to verify this.
02:01And so we have a helicopter that's been dedicated that is going to be doing that really, really very difficult work.
02:09Obviously, we continue to pray that we will not have to recover many bodies.
02:13But telecommunications remain one of the major challenges,
02:16with many residents still unable to contact relatives to confirm their safety.
02:21Electricity restoration is also proving difficult, with most of the island still without power.
02:28Over 70 percent of transmission lines remain out of service due to the severe damage.
02:34Reconnaissance flights with the J.D.F. will continue today to assess further damage.
02:39Distribution, over 52,000 customers were restored over the last 24 hours.
02:48Approximately 490,380 customers, 72 percent of the customer base, is still without power.
02:56Water supply systems are being restored through temporary measures expected to be in place by Sunday.
03:03Permanent repairs could take up to six weeks.
03:06And while the nation focuses on recovery, authorities warn that some are seeking to exploit the crisis, both locally and abroad.
03:15The Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Team, Jamaica Cert, is issuing an urgent alert to the public in Jamaica and worldwide
03:23regarding the emergence of fraudulent websites attempting to exploit generosity in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.
03:31Jamaica Cert's monitoring systems have detected multiple suspicious domains currently under development
03:40that appears designed to divert hurricane relief donations away from legitimate channels.
03:48In fact, up to last night, we identified eight such sites.
03:53And just now, it has been updated to 28 sites that are attempting to divert contributions, donations from legitimate sources.
04:06Officials are advising donors that all authentic government relief platforms end with .gov.jm.
04:14J.M.
04:15Overshaid Tawari, Rupnarein, TV6 News.
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