Hours after Hurricane Melissa made landfall on Jamaica’s southern coast as one of the strongest storms on record, it slammed into eastern Cuba as a Category 3 early Wednesday.

Melissa was still considered a major hurricane despite significantly weakening Tuesday afternoon as it crossed Jamaica’s mountainous terrain. The storm first made landfall near New Hope, Jamaica, around noon local time as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph — among the most powerful ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.

At landfall, Melissa’s central pressure dropped to 892 millibars, making it the most intense hurricane to strike land in the Atlantic since 1935 and tying it for the third-most intense storm ever recorded in the basin.

As of Wednesday morning, the extent of the damage in western and cen

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