SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba — The rumble of large machinery, whine of chainsaws and chopping of machetes echoed through communities across the northern Caribbean on Thursday as they dug out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa and assessed the damage left by the catastrophic storm.

In southeastern Jamaica, government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach dozens of isolated communities that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record.

Stunned residents wandered about, some staring at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings strewn around them.

“I don’t have a house now,” said a distressed Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of Lacovia in the southern parish of St. Elizabeth, as he held onto his bicycle, the only possession of va

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