Aid groups are bracing for what they are going to see on the ground in the wake of Hurricane Melissa's destruction.

Speaking to the BBC earlier, Brian Bogart, who leads the World Food Programme's Caribbean Multi-Country Office in Barbados, said the storm would rank as a "major disaster" in the history of the region.

“I fear it will resemble some of the most catastrophic events that I’ve been a part of," he said.

"We are bracing for what we’re about to understand in terms of the impacts of this storm on the people."

Looking ahead, the challenges of delivering aid once the true scale of the damage is revealed will depend on Jamaica's infrastructure, Bogart added.

“When bridges are washed out and roads are damaged, it’s very difficult to get supplies to people… it’s very difficult to understand what the needs are if we can’t make contact with those communities."

Web outage monitor service Netblocks has reported a steep drop-off in connectivity across Jamaica.

Across the country, "hundreds of thousands" of people are without power and telecoms due to high winds and downed power lines, it says.

A graph, external shared on its X account highlights the rapid decline since yesterday.

If the hurricane remains at its current strength, it will barrel through Cuba with wind speeds of up to 130mph (215km/h), according to the National Hurricane Center's latest advisory notice.

Rains are expected to reach 10 to 20 inches in the east, while some mountainous areas could see 25 inches of rainfall. This will cause "life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding" as well as "numerous landslides", the NHC says.

Storm surges could be as high as 8 to 12 feet above normal tide levels near where the hurricane makes landfall and will be accompanied by "large and destructive waves", it adds.

Later on Wednesday, Melissa is predicted to hit southeastern or central Bahamas, and bringing tropical storm conditions to Haiti. By Thursday, it will approach Bermuda.

Image source, National Hurricane Center

The US National Hurricane Center has just issued a new advisory note for Hurricane Melissa, upgrading its strength to category 4.

It will hit Cuba as an "extremely dangerous major hurricane" in the next few hours, it says.

President Donald Trump has told reporters on his flight from Japan to South Korea that the US was positioned to send aid to Jamaica if needed.

"We're watching it closely and we are prepared to move forward. You know, it's doing tremendous damage as we speak," he said.

Trump also commented on the fierce winds that have battered the island, and the rare category five hurricane rating that Melissa had when it made landfall.

"I've never seen that before," said Trump, who, as a Florida resident, is no stranger to hurricanes.

"That it's literally just, you know, knock it down, everything in front of it.

"It's just, it's a stage five. What can I say? You don't see stages like that. You don't see fives. You see fours and threes."

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Twitter/@DiazCanelB

Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has recently posted on X to say more than 735,000 people across the country have been evacuated due to Melissa.

"It will be a very difficult night for all of Cuba, but we will recover, always with the faith in victory that Fidel and Raúl instilled in us," he said, referring to the Castro brothers, the country's former leaders.

Image source, Getty Images

Jamaican PM Andrew Holness says he expects there to be "devastating impacts" wherever the eye of Melissa hit the island.

“Reports that we have had so far would include damage to hospitals, significant damage to residential property, housing and commercial property as well,” Holness told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

He added that the southwestern end of Jamaica, including St Elizabeth, would have been the hurricane's "corridor of impact", before the storm headed towards the north-west.

The government has not yet received reports of storm-related deaths, Holness says, but given the strength of the hurricane and extent of damage, he is "expecting that there would be some loss of life".

Ambrosine Townsend, who lives in Kent in the UK but was born in Jamaica, is waiting anxiously for news of her friends and family back home.

The internet has been down since Sunday afternoon in the area where her younger sister lives, in the rural community of Long Bay in the northeast corner of the country.

Her sister's home overlooks the coast, but is on a hill slightly above the surrounding area, making it so that she and her husband chose to stay put as the hurricane arrived.

"I'm very confident she's well prepared," Townsend, 67, says about her sister, after she failed to persuade her to go stay with friends further from the coast.

"Even though I trust her, I tried to persuade her. Because I know that things can change. But she was adamant that she would be OK."

Townsend sounds relieved when she says she's just heard from another friend back in Jamaica, who works as a housekeeper and is temporarily staying with her boss. If not for that accommodation, she would be in "danger" at home, she says.

Image source, Getty Images

With Cuba expected to be hit in the next few hours, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has called on residents of Cuba's east to be brave in the face of the hurricane.

"I ask you to be alert, show solidarity, and not forget discipline in the face of this threat. We will prevail," he said, according to Cuba's official state newspaper Granma.

Evacuations are in place for parts of Cuba, especially vulnerable areas including nearby dams and in flood zones, as well as in mountainous regions that are susceptible to landslides.

Image source, AP

Hurricane Melissa is heading north towards Cuba and is expected to hit it within the next five hours roughly.

Earlier in the day, it was a category five storm bringing high winds and heavy rain to Jamaica. A full assessment of Melissa's impact on Jamaica is still unclear but already we are seeing early video showing flooded streets in Kingston.

Here is what we know:

• Melissa is about 160 miles (260 km) south west of Guantanamo, Cuba and will affect five eastern provinces
• Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin, and Las Tunas provinces are all under hurricane warning advisories
• Hurricane warnings are also in effect for southeastern and central Bahamas
• Bermuda is under a hurricane watch advisory
• Melissa will bring tropical storms to Haiti and, Turks and Caicos and Camagüey province in central Cuba

Image source, George Chac

Jamaicans will spend tonight sheltering in place after Hurricane Melissa slammed the island. The storm is now heading towards Cuba, but powerful winds and heavy rain will continue to pummel Jamaica.

More than 800 shelters were opened ahead of Melissa's impact, according to Jamaican officials. And some 15,000 people are in these shelters tonight.

Image source, George Chac

Melissa is now a category three hurricane, according to a new update from the US National Hurricane Center.

Maximum sustained windspeeds are currently 125mph (205km/h), a large drop from the 185mph when it made landfall a few hours ago.

It warns that more "catastrophic" flooding is likely in Jamaica, with some areas expecting 30 inches (76cm) of rain.

The latest bulletin calls for Jamaicans to remain inside shelters until the storm is fully passed.

It also calls on residents of Cuba, where up to 25 inches of rain is predicted, to "seek safe shelter immediately".

In the Bahamas, where Melissa is due to arrive in a few hours, "preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion".

St Elizabeth Parish, in Jamaica's southwestern coast, is now under water, after the country's infrastructure was "severely compromised" by Hurricane Melissa, a local government minister says.

Desmond McKenzie says the Black River Hospital in St Elizabeth Parish is now without power and 75 patients are being relocated.

The region of Clarendon has suffered extensive damage, he adds, and a fire station in Santa Cruz is flooded.

"We're still not out of the woods," he warns, adding that assessment teams will make their way out to provide communities with necessary relief supplies when the opportunity presents itself.

"We are on standby. Everything is ready, we are just waiting for the system to pass and for some level of calm to come back to the system," McKenzie says.

Close to 15,000 Jamaicans have gone to various shelters across the country, he says.

More now from Desmond McKenzie.

He says Jamaica's government "remains proactive in our planning" and remains poised to respond "when the opportunity presents itself".

"This is one of the worst experiences that we have ever encountered," he says, referencing Hurricane Charlie in 1951 and Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

He adds that the government and its Office of Disaster Preparedness have learned lessons from those storms, as well as from Hurricane Beryl last year. They reviewed their performance in those disasters and instituted lessons from them, he says.

"Despite the challenges, I think we have done well," he says, adding: "The next round is going to be more difficult than preparing for Melissa."

We've been hearing from Jamaica's local government minister Desmond McKenzie, who says he hasn't "gotten anything official to say that there are deaths".

"Let us hope that there are none so far," he says at a news conference.

He adds that it is "not possible to do any assessment at all on damage" - even on a preliminary level - because "nobody right now can go to do any assessment".

He reiterates that officials continue to wait for "a window of opportunity" to get relief supplies to the thousands of Jamaicans "who do not know what their fate is".

"That is our first priority - to get relief supplies to those who are in need and the assessment will come after."

Airports also remain closed, which is also stalling the influx of relief supplies.

We can bring you latest video sent to us by Nick Davis, a BBC reporter in Kingston:

We're hearing more about what it's like for people on the ground in Jamaica as the storm continues, and how difficult they expect recovery efforts to be.

Tamisha Lee is in Mandeville, where she is seeing heavy rain, powerful winds, objects flying through the air, and darkness as the electricity has gone out. Lee is the president of the Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers (JNRWP), a partner of humanitarian organisation CARE International, which will be helping with the recovery effort.

"I am feeling anxious and tense, but I am focused. The fear is real, but our preparation is helping us manage that fear," she says.

The post-storm recovery will be a marathon, not a sprint, Lee says. With a lot of infrastructure damage expected, making roads impassable, Lee says JNRWP will have a difficult time delivering aid to its members. And without electricity, communication will be a struggle too, she adds.

"Based on the forecast and what we have been experiencing since Sunday evening, I am anticipating the damage will be enormous."

Volunteers for the Global Empowerment Mission charity have been filling boxes of essential goods to send to affected areas.

The boxes, which they are preparing at the group's headquarters in Miami, Florida, contain drinking water, preserved meat, canned soups and stews:

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Earlier we spoke to Kyle Holmes, from Bolton, who is visiting Jamaica with his wife and young daughters, aged 7, 10, and 12, for a family wedding.

He said the windows and balconies of the hotel he was staying in - the Grand Palladium Resort, in the town of Lucea - had started to rattle and "everything was smashing against the building".

The hotel now looks like "a disaster zone" said Holmes, who added his family are now safe after the "worst experience ever".

He says he has barricaded the windows to the hotel room by placing all the furniture against them.

"We were supposed to be flying back tomorrow afternoon at 15:30," he told BBC Manchester radio.

"But the president of the airport has said it won't be open until Thursday.

Our reporter Dan Wareing has the full story here.