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As Hurricane Melissa ripped through Jamaica, Rohan Marley received a call from a close friend living in Black River on the southwest coast of the island.
“He was showing me the winds that were coming and he was like, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this,’” he tells The Independent from his home in Miami.
Mr Marley, who is the son of iconic musician Bob Marley, immediately began to worry. Within hours, the storm had reduced the sleepy town of Black River to rubble.
“It’s the aftermath you worry about, because of the lack of light, [and] accessibility to water, food and normal resources that people don’t have on a daily basis,” he said.
Hurricane Melissa became the strongest storm to ever hit Jamaica when it made landfall on 28 October. As a category 5 hurricane, it surpassed the power of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which itself caused widespread damage.
Residents were forced to seek shelter as gales of 185mph tore through the
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