Hurricane Melissa made landfall in eastern Cuba near the city of Chivirico early Wednesday as a Category 3 storm after pummeling Jamaica as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated to shelters in Cuba. A hurricane warning was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguin and Las Tunas, as well as the southeastern and central Bahamas.

Residents continued to evacuate from their homes in Cuba as Hurricane Melissa battered its way through the Caribbean and was expected to arrive on the island’s shores. (AP video shot by: Ariel Fernández, Matias Delacroix and Jordany Junior Verdieu)

Early Wednesday, Melissa had top sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) an

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