Hurricane Melissa roared ashore on Tuesday as one of the most powerful landfalls in Atlantic Basin recorded history.

Editor's note: This page summarizes Hurricane Melissa news for Thursday ... Desmond McKenzie, Jamaica's minister of local government and community development, acknowledged during a news briefing earlier in the day that there were casualties and the ...

Follow live updates on Hurricane Melissa as the death toll reaches 38 people. Recovery efforts are underway in Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Category 5 Hurricane Melissa sped up early Tuesday making landfall in Jamaica around 1 p.m, tying the record for the strongest landfall in the Atlantic.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a fearsome Category 5 storm. Forecasters said it could be the island's "storm of the century."

Jamaican officials warned Sunday that some communities may not survive “catastrophic” flash floods as Hurricane Melissa, a powerful Category 4 storm, inched slowly toward the island. Melissa was packing maximum sustained winds of 145 mph and moving west at 5 mph,

CBS News Miami has been in touch with families living through the aftermath, including Marvin Edwards, who rode out the hurricane in Montego Bay.

The strongest storm to directly hit Jamaica before Melissa was Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which made landfall as a category four hurricane, according to the US National Weather Service. Damaging winds and heavy rain have hit eastern Cuba, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.