Hurricane Melissa intensified Tuesday before making landfall on Jamaica as by far the strongest storm to hit the island of 2.8 million people since records were first kept 174 years ago.
Melissa made landfall near the town of New Hope, some 62 km (39 miles) south of Montego Bay, packing maximum sustained winds of 185 mph (295 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory.
The most powerful level on the Saffir-Simpson scale, Category 5, requires speeds of at least 157 mph.
The slow-moving storm is forecast to remain a powerful hurricane as it crosses the mountainous island, whose highland communities are vulnerable to landslides and flooding, and heads towards Santiago de Cuba, Cuba's second-largest city.
The Miami-based hurricane center warned that "total structural failure" was likely in Melissa's path.
