Hurricane Melissa | Courtesy: CBS

Hurricane Melissa made landfall over eastern Cuba near the city of Chivirico early Wednesday as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said, after pummeling Jamaica as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.

Melissa weakened somewhat while over Cuba, dropping to a Category 2 storm by 8 a.m. EDT, but it continued to hit eastern parts of the island with “damaging winds, flooding rains, and dangerous storm surge,” the center said. Forecasters expected the hurricane to bring the same impacts to the Bahamas, which it was expected to strike later on Wednesday.

Some 735,000 people were evacuated ahead of the storm, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said Tuesday night.

A hurricane warning was i

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