Hurricane Melissa made landfall along Jamaica's southwestern coast Tuesday as an extremely powerful Category 5 storm.

Images from a helicopter over Black River, a coastal town of 5,000 in southwestern Jamaica, show the extent of the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa.

Hurricane Melissa has caused devastating flooding in Haiti, leading to at least 20 deaths on the island. Many homes have been washed away in the floodwaters and people have been clearing debris with their bare hands, Pascal Bimenyimana from the World Relief NGO says.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba overnight after battering Jamaica as one of the most powerful landfalling storms in Atlantic basin history.

After lashing Jamaica with dangerous winds and flooding rain, Melissa made a second landfall in Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday morning. Melissa then moved through the Bahamas, and next, on Thursday night, the storm will pass Bermuda as a Category 1 or 2 hurricane.

Hurricane Melissa came ashore in Jamaica Tuesday as a catastrophic Category 5 storm, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, and it will continue on to hit eastern Cuba as a major hurricane,

In Jamaica, 25,000 people crowded into shelters after the hurricane destroyed homes and left most of the island without power.

New verified footage has emerged providing further evidence that a prominent fighter from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been involved in carrying out in executions in el-Fasher. The city in western Sudan was the last major army stronghold in the Darfur region and fell to the RSF on Sunday.