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Alarming video has captured the monster eye of Hurricane Melissa barreling towards Jamaica — as the planet’s strongest storm this year was on track to pummel the Caribbean island early Tuesday.
The slow-moving “catastrophic” Category 5 storm was expected to make landfall in the early hours and slice diagonally across the island — in what could be the largest on record for the nation, the US National Hurricane Center warned.
Menacing aerial footage showed the eye of the storm swirling above as the hurricane was already packing sustained winds of up to 175 mph as of late Monday.
Melissa’s wingspan is currently larger than the length of Jamaica.
Forecasters have warned Jamaica could be threatened with days of never-before-seen catastrophic winds and as much as 3 feet of rain as the hurricane progresses.
A life-threatening storm surge of up to 13 feet was also expected across southern Jamaica.
“There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in the hours before the storm was set to strike.
“The question now is the speed of recovery. That’s the challenge.”
The historic storm has already been blamed for at least seven deaths in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic.
After making landfall in Jamaica, the fierce storm was expected to hit Cuba later Tuesday before lashing the Bahamas by Wednesday evening.
With Post wires
English (US)