Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Jamaica

Night is falling here in Jamaica as this country battered by Hurricane Melissa counts its cost and cleans up.

Brian William had few words to offer when asked what it was like enduring a category 5 hurricane.

“Worst experience. Damage alone can tell,” he says. In blue basketball shorts, flip flops and a white T-shirt, I found him on a street corner, directing traffic on newly cleared roads that many people in this area of St Elizabeth are driving across for the first time in days.

When asked how the community will move forward, he says: "Just cleaning. Just cleaning."

The clean-up will be long and arduous.

We are pausing our live coverage for today but my BBC colleagues and I will continue to document Melissa's impact on this island.

• Read more of the BBC's coverage here.

Will Grant
Reporting from Kingston, Jamaica

We have arrived in Jamaica with an aid team from a US-based humanitarian organisation, Global Empowerment Mission, who have spent the past few days packing boxes of emergency aid onto pallets, and those pallets onto planes.

That humanitarian assistance has already started coming in but more is on its way. And as details continue to emerge of the extent of the damage, it can't get in fast enough. There are plans to unload the aid onto flatbed trucks and, within a day, get it to the affected communities in Black River and beyond,

Crucial among the support coming in is dozens and dozens of generators. With power still out to most of the island, a single generator can go a long way. And help many who have been cut off since Melissa struck to get the word out to their families that they're safe.

We have been speaking to Jamaicans as they assess the damage from Tuesday's hurricane.

We got through to the artist Trevor 'Zyanigh' Whyte who spoke to the BBC from a friend's house near the town of White House in Westmoreland parish. There, they have access to a Starlink internet connection and a generator.

"No one is able to get through to their loved ones," he says. "Everyone is just, you know, completely disconnected. Words can't explain how devastating."

He says roads are destroyed so he and others have been walking to neighbouring communities to "check in on our loved ones."

"Every tree is on the road right so you can't get too far with the cars, not even a bicycle."

In a recent update, Prime Minister Andrew Holness says he is on his way to Westmoreland parish.

"I know many Jamaicans are concerned about their loved ones and fellow citizens in these areas," he says.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Jamaica

Local Santa Cruz resident Barrington Robinson strolled through an empty lot near the supermarket where he’s a janitor, carrying a long, muddied machete over his shoulder.

He says he was only able to reach this part of town by chopping down the field of broken branches surrounding his neighbourhood.

“I got mi bike. Mi bike mi can’t ride. Trees down. Everything disaster,” he tells me.

“We never see this in our history. [Hurricane] Gilbert was a baby,” he says of the devastating 1988 hurricane.

He’s visibly frustrated. He says he lost half his home but doesn’t feel anyone cares. He counted 19 ambulances earlier making their way through the town’s main road behind a fleet of tractors clearing the way, headed further west, he suspects to Black River.

“Every place flooded out. Mi uncomfortable. Mi don’t know what to do,” he says.

Jamaican rapper Sean Paul says he was at home during the hurricane - and now he's helping to raise funding for relief efforts.

"People are misplaced, people are hurt, people are without any help right now," he said in a video posted to Instagram. In the clip, you can see some downed tree branches scattered behind him

The rapper, best known for his 2005 hit "Temperature", encouraged his fans to donate to Food for the Poor Jamaica and said he would match donations of up to $50,000 (€38,000).

"Together, we can double the impact and help even more families get back on their feet," he wrote in the caption.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Jamaica

We’ve now crossed into St Elizabeth parish, home to the town of Black River and other areas hardest hit by Hurricane Melissa.

In the town of Santa Cruz, chunks of road are missing. Men in flip flops, positioned on the roofs of boarded houses, patch up missing shingles or nail down sheets of zinc.

“Not built for a hurricane at all,” the driver says.

Pockets of flood water appear, as the roads become mud-slicked.

Traffic has slowed tremendously. What remains of the road has started to narrow, closed in by fallen debris.

Governments, humanitarian organisations, and individuals around the world are pledging support for the Caribbean nations hardest hit by Hurricane Melissa, including Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba.

What governments are offering:

• The United States: The State Department says it is deploying a disaster response team to the region, activating a team in the US to help with search and recue efforts, and assisting in efforts to provide food, water, medical supplies, hygiene kits, temporary shelter, and search and rescue support
• The UK: The government says it is sending £2.5 million ($3.36 million) in emergency humanitarian funding to support recovery in the Caribbean
• Canada: The Secretary of State is providing 7 million Canadian dollars (about $5 million USD) to support emergency relief in the Caribbean

And UN agencies:

• World Food Programme: The humanitarian organisation says it is collaborating with partners to coordinate logistics, cash and emergency supplies across Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic

• UNICEF: Before the hurricane made landfall, the group prepared water, sanitation, and hygiene kits for about 14,500 people as well as nutritional supplies for over 4,000 children
• UNFPA: The UN's reproductive health agency provided reproductive health kits for 5,000 people and dignity kits for 4,000 people
• Pan American Health Organization: The WHO-led group provided medical kits for about 11,000 people

If you'd like to donate to support rescue, relief, and recovery efforts in the Caribbean, you can donate at the following official links:

• UNICEF, external
• Jamaican government relief, external
• United Way Disaster Relief and Recovery, external
• Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), external

While Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti assess the damage left in Melissa's wake, Bermuda is bracing for impact.

The storm is expected to reach the British overseas territory tonight and pass over through until the early hours of Friday morning. The Bermuda Weather Service expects it to be a category two hurricane.

The international airport will close later tonight. Government offices will close until Friday afternoon and all schools will shut for Friday in preparation for Hurricane Melissa and the clean up that will follow.

"Until the official 'All Clear' is issued, residents are urged to stay off the roads so Government work crews can safely assess and clear debris," a public alert from the government said.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Jamaica

On the toll road headed west, it's unexpectedly clear, “pretty new”, as the driver describes it. Police checkpoints appear sporadically along the way.

Exiting the toll way, about an hour outside of Kingston, I saw my first downed vehicle, a white car that had nose-dived into a ditch on the side of the road.

The deeper we go, the more we see splintered branches and broken trees - though with the occasional vendor selling mangoes by the roadside.

Image source, Reuters

Elsewhere, we've been hearing an update about the impact of Hurricane Melissa is Cuba and Haiti from two aid coordinators at the United Nations.

On Cuba, Francisco Pichon, who is the UN's Resident Co-ordinator for Cuba, says:

• More than 3 million people were "exposed to life-threatening conditions" in Cuba during the storm, as 735,000 people were "safely evacuated"

• No fatalities have been reported so far, but almost 240 communities have been cut off due to flooding and landslides, according to Cuban authorities
• Cuba's second and fourth largest cities, Santiago de Cuba and Holguín, were impacted

• Cuba is dealing with damage to health facilities, schools, power lines, and telecommunications

On Haiti, Gregoire Goodstein - interim UN co-ordinator for the island nation- says:

• The death toll stands at 24, many of whom died when a river overflowed in Petit-Goave. A full assessment is still ongoing, as there are still areas that authorities haven't been able to access
• Around 15,000 people were sheltered in over 120 shelters
• There have been significant losses to the agricultural sector, with banana plantations hit and saturation of soil

• There is already widespread humanitarian crisis in Haiti, Goodstein adds - with 1.4 million people currently displaced due to gang violence

Image source, Reuters

Melissa's impact: Black Riverpublished at 20:36 GMT 30 October

20:36 GMT 30 October

Arguably the most striking impact of the hurricane can be seen in images of the southwestern coastal port of Black River.

We can identify specific buildings that have been battered or in some cases destroyed.

By comparing a satellite image taken on 9 February with one taken on 29 October - after the hurricane hit - you can see that the distinctive white roof of a building housing a market has been replaced by a gaping hole.

A little further north, a café has been wiped off the map.

At the top of the image, the red roof of a warehouse has disappeared.

The outline of the fire station next to the market is still visible but the top of the building appears to have been torn off.

Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness has described Black River as "ground zero" after sharing footage of the destruction there.

Regan Morris
Reporting from Jamaica

As we landed in Jamaica and discussed plans to travel to impacted areas, three different people offered to let us stay in their homes for free.

Jamaica has been battered and the Jamaicans on our flight want the world to see it. As we grabbed our backpacks and cameras from the overhead luggage, a man named Bernard offered to help us find accommodation near Black River – one of the most severely impacted areas.

Several passengers on our flight overheard and started offering us homes or offering to call their friends to help us.

As journalists, we often witness people going through the worst days of their lives. We are also privileged to witness the absolute best in humanity. Jamaica couldn’t have given us a warmer welcome.

A look at the aftermath of Melissa: White Housepublished at 20:14 GMT 30 October

20:14 GMT 30 October

Photographs of White House, a fishing village on the west coast of Jamaica which is home to several thousand people, reveal how it bore the brunt as Melissa made landfall with winds of up to 185 mph.

Nearly every structure appears to have been damaged or destroyed.

In particular, the buildings next to the beach appear to have razed to the ground.

These include restaurants called Marva's and Pelican Lookout.

The top of a large circular structure is now missing and further inland, along the main road, a cluster of shops has been hit hard.

Fishing boats in the bay - seen in satellite imagery on 7 October - have disappeared.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Jamaica

Image source, BBC / Brandon Drenon

One of the first things you notice exiting the airport in Kingston is the heat and humidity.

It’s only 28°C (83°F), but it somehow feels like I’m standing in a steam room.

This morning, officials said roughly 70% of the island was without power, which we noticed in the spotty cellphone service between the airport and hotel, although we have yet to see any downed trees or power lines.

Despite a category 5 slamming into the island two days ago, the buildings we’ve seen in central Kingston appear to have gone unscathed.

Now that we're on the road to more devastated areas, it shouldn't take long before we start to see the effects of Hurricane Melissa begin to show.

Before and after Melissa: A view of Montego Baypublished at 19:21 GMT 30 October

19:21 GMT 30 October

BBC Verify has been examining satellite pictures of areas around Jamaica before and after the passage of Hurricane Melissa earlier this week.

Part of of Montego Bay - one of Jamaica's most popular tourists destinations - now resemble a brown swamp.

The shore on this section of the northwest coast has been transformed by the flood water which now stains the beach.

Authorities say facilities at the port and industrial park were inundated.

The container terminal, an oil storage facility and nearby water treatment plant were all badly affected, along with a sports complex.

The mayor of Montego Bay, Richard Vernon, has called the place "devastated" and added that locals are doing all they can to look after each other.

Montego Bay is a popular destination for cruise ships to dock and home to golf courses as well resorts next to the normally pristine white sand.

The BBC's Nick Davis has arrived in Falmouth, one of the worst-hit areas of Jamaica by Hurricane Melissa.

Buildings in the town are destroyed, and conditions are "slowly but surely becoming unbearable".

"The reality is people have survived the hurricane, now they're in a situation where they're trying to create a new normal," he says.

Watch more from Falmouth below:

Here's what we learned from today's press conference with Jamaican officials:

• More casualties are expected as rescue and recovery efforts continue
• Shelters, which are currently housing 13,000 people, will remain open
• Scammers have created dozens of fraudulent websites soliciting donations
• Power has been restored to 8 major Jamaican hospitals, while most of the country remains without power
• Jamaica's two airports are back up and running
• The country's defence force has deployed helicopters to search for bodies

We expect to hear an update on the death toll later today or tomorrow.

Away from Jamaica, Hurricane Melissa is expected to make landfall in Bermuda around 01:00 local time (04:00 GMT).

In an update, the country's government warns that "conditions will deteriorate rapidly" this afternoon, with tropical storm-force winds "developing by evening" and hurricane-strength winds overnight.

The government is urging residents to "complete all hurricane preparations, stay off roads, and remain indoors" until authorities confirm otherwise.

Bermuda's Minister of National Security, Michael Weeks, is convening an emergency meeting with emergency agencies this afternoon, it adds.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Kingston, Jamaica

One of the main questions on many people's minds in Jamaica and elsewhere is: what will the final death toll be?

Dr Alison Thompson, founder of Third Wave Volunteers - which works to mobilise first responders to provide disaster relief - tells me a true picture of fatalities may not come into view for days.

Thompson says she’s been across the world on 921 missions, since she founded her organisation in 2001.

Arriving in Jamaica on the same flight as me, she says that based off the online images she’s seen of the island so far, she anticipates that "this one is up there” among the worst natural disasters she's responded to.

“This world just has so much suffering,” Thompson says with a sigh.

The BBC has a team on the ground in Jamaica reporting on the latest developments in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

The UK government is working to get British nationals out of hurricane-devastated Jamaica.

It did not specify how many planes had been chartered, but said Brits and their immediate family would be able to take them as long as they held valid travel documents.

As many as 8,000 British nationals are thought to be in Jamaica, where homes have been destroyed, flooding is widespread, and at least five people have died.

The UK Foreign Office says it is prioritising the most vulnerable first, like children and those with medical needs, for seats on the flights.

As a reminder, the UK government has also mobilised £2.5 million in emergency humanitarian aid to the Caribbean region.

• For more on this story: UK charters flights for Britons stranded in Jamaica