UK aid for Hurricane Melissa reaches Jamaica as Britons to be evacuated

A flight carrying British aid arrived in Jamaica early on Saturday to help with recovery efforts after Hurricane Melissa, as the UK plans its first chartered flight to bring British nationals home later on Saturday.

The aid flight brought more than 3,000 emergency shelter kits as part of a £7.5m regional emergency package.

Part of the funding will be used to match public donations up to £1m to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent – with King Charles and Queen Camilla among those who have donated.

Despite aid arriving in Jamaica in recent days, fallen trees and landslides have complicated distribution after Hurricane Melissa devastated parts of the island, killing at least 19 people.

The hurricane made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a category five storm and was one of the most powerful hurricanes ever measured in the Caribbean.

Melissa swept across the region over a number of days and left behind a trail of destruction and dozens of people dead. In Haiti, at least 30 people were killed, while Cuba also saw flooding and landslides.

Jamaica’s Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon said on Friday “there are entire communities that seem to be marooned and areas that seem to be flattened”.

The UK initially set aside a £2.5 million immediate financial support package, with an additional £5 million announced by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on Friday.

Cooper said the announcement came as “more information is now coming through on the scale of devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, with homes damaged, roads blocks and lives lost”.

The British Red Cross said the King and Queen’s donation would help the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) “continue its lifesaving work” – which includes search and rescue efforts in Jamaica as well as ensuring access to healthcare, safe shelter and clean water.

The Red Cross said, as of Saturday morning, that 72% of people across Jamaica still do not have electricity and around 6,000 are in emergency shelters.

Until the Jamaican government can get the broken electricity grid back up and running, any generators aid agencies can distribute will be vital.

So too will tarpaulins, given the extent of the housing crisis.

Meanwhile, with so many in need of clean drinking water and basic food, patience is wearing thin and there are more reports of desperate people entering supermarkets to gather and give out whatever food they can find.

The BBC has seen queues for petrol pumps, with people waiting for hours to then be told there is no fuel left when they reach the front of the queue.

Some people are seeking fuel for generators, others for a car to reach an area in which they can contact people, with the power down across most of the island.

The country’s health minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, on Saturday described “significant damage” across a number of hospitals – with the Black River Hospital in St Elizabeth being the most severely affected.

“That facility will have to be for now totally relocated in terms of services,” he said.

“The immediate challenge of the impacted hospitals is to preserve accident and emergency services,” Dr Tufton added. “What we’re seeing is that a lot of people are coming in now to these facilities with trauma-related [injuries] from falls from the roof, to ladders, to nails penetrating their feet”.

The minister said arrangements had been made for the ongoing supply of fuel to the facilities as well as a “daily supply of water”.

Although aid is entering the country, landslides, downed power lines and fallen trees have made certain roads impassable.

However, some of the worst affected areas of Jamaica should finally receive some relief in the coming hours.

At least one aid organisation, Global Empowerment Mission, rolled out this morning from Kingston with a seven-truck convoy to Black River, the badly damaged town of western Jamaica, carrying packs of humanitarian assistance put together by volunteers from the Jamaican diaspora community in Florida.

Help is also coming in from other aid groups and foreign governments via helicopter.

It remains only a small part of what the affected communities need but authorities insist more is coming soon.

Around 8,000 British nationals were thought to have been on the island when the hurricane hit.

The UK’s first chartered flight to bring British citizens home is set to leave Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport late on Saturday.

The UK foreign office has asked travellers to register their presence on the island.

The department also advises travellers to contact their airline to check whether commercial options are available.