Hurricane Melissa has slammed into eastern Cuba, hours after causing devastation in neighbouring Jamaica as the strongest cyclone on record to hit that Caribbean island nation.

Melissa was last about 95km west-southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba, with maximum sustained winds of 195km/h, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest update.

It had subsided to a category three hurricane since it roared ashore near Jamaica's southwestern town of New Hope, packing sustained winds of up to 295km/h, according to the Miami-based forecaster.

That was well above the minimum 253/km/h wind speed of a category five storm, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

In southwestern Jamaica, the parish of St Elizabeth was left "underwater", an official said, with more than 500,000 resi

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