Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba overnight after battering Jamaica as one of the most powerful landfalling storms in Atlantic basin history.

As Jamaica starts a new day, the true extent of Hurricane Melissa is being revealed. With 75% of the country without electricity overnight, the numbers without shelter, injured - or perhaps dead haven't even begun to be counted.

Jamaica is expected to be in the storm's eyewall, which refers to the band of dense clouds surrounding the eye of the hurricane. The eyewall generally produces the fiercest winds and heaviest rainfall, according to Deanna Hence, a professor of climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Melissa is expected to strengthen from a tropical storm into a major hurricane and bring "catastrophic" flash flooding and landslides to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Most of Jamaica remains without power, as our correspondent reports floods, mudslides and "palm trees tossed like toothpicks".