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 moved offshore of Cuba by late morning, after weakening somewhat and dropping to a Category 2 storm by 8 a.m. EDT. But it continued to bring "damaging winds, flooding rains, and dangerous storm surge" to parts of Cuba and was expected to bring the same impacts to the Bahamas later on Wednesday, the center said.

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

A hurricane warning was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba,

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