KINGSTON — Hurricane Melissa churned toward Cuba’s second-largest city with the force of a powerful Category 4 storm on Tuesday, hours after making landfall in neighboring Jamaica as the strongest-ever cyclone on record to hit that Caribbean island nation.

Melissa roared ashore near Jamaica’s southwestern town of New Hope, packing sustained winds of up to 185 mph (295 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, well above the minimum 157 mph (252 kph) wind speed of a Category 5 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 residents without power.

“The reports that we have had so far would include damage to hospitals, significant damage to resident

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