Hurricane Melissa: UK to provide £2.5m in humanitarian support to Jamaica

The UK will provide £2.5m in emergency humanitarian funding to Jamaica, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has announced.

UK relief supplies and technical experts have also been deployed to assist with the disaster response and recovery from the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa.

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer told the Commons: “The scenes of destruction emerging from Jamaica are truly shocking.”

The £2.5m funding will go towards delivering emergency supplies such as shelter kits, water filters and blankets, according to the FCDO.

The PM also told MPs that naval vessel HMS Trent had been “pre-positioned in the region” to provide support.

As many as 8,000 Britons are understood to be in Jamaica and the FCDO has urged them to register their presence to receive updates on the hurricane.

A specialist FCDO team has travelled to Miami to provide consular assistance to affected British nationals

In a statement on X, King Charles said he and Queen Camilla had been “deeply concerned and profoundly saddened to see the catastrophic damage caused by the ferocity of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and across the Caribbean”.

“Above all, our most heartfelt sympathy is with the families, friends and loved ones of those who have tragically lost their lives,” the statement added.

Hurricane Melissa – now a category three storm and headed towards the Bahamas – first hit Jamaica’s southern coast with maximum sustained winds of 295km/h (185mph) – the strongest on Earth so far this year.

Those speeds were above those of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 , one of the worst storms in history.

With communications crippled, the true scale of the disaster remains unknown.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the island a “disaster area” on Tuesday, warning of “devastating impacts” and “significant damage” to hospitals, homes and businesses.

Three-quarters of the country had no electricity overnight and many parts of Jamaica’s western side are under water, with homes destroyed by strong winds after the hurricane tore across the island with catastrophic force.

Families and friends in the UK have faced difficulty contacting Britons in Jamaica.

Rayanne Walters, 26, from London, says her messages have not been delivered to her friend in Jamaica.

“We tried phoning him. After a few minutes – it cuts off.

“I’ve been really, really sad and feel heartbroken. I just really want to know my friends are okay. It’s one tick on all the phones,” she told the BBC.

Yvonne Williams, a teacher from Leeds, has also been unable to contact her sister.

She said: “Ever since the storm made landfall at around 5pm I haven’t been able to get in touch with my sister

“I kept waking up periodically through the night to try and get through.”

Kyle Holmes, from Bolton, was visiting the Caribbean island for his mother’s wedding when Hurricane Melissa struck.

Mr Holmes, his wife, and three young children were forced to hunker down in their hotel room for 20 hours.

“It was like being like in a war zone – it was horrible,” he told BBC North West Tonight. “All the windows were shaking and things were getting thrown at us.”

While Melissa has now cleared Jamaica, there will still be some thunderstorms across the island.

The National Hurricane Center warns that an additional 8-15cm (3-6in) of rain is possible in parts, with up to 76cm over mountainous areas.

Certain areas will remain flooded and there is a risk of ongoing flash flooding and numerous landslides around mountainous regions that could continue into Wednesday night.

According to the Met Office, a low-pressure system containing the remnants of Hurricane Melissa will move across the UK next week.

The weather system will move across the far north-west late on Sunday and into early Monday – likely as a largely “business as usual” system, the Met Office said.