A leading disaster-mitigation specialist and a social-development specialist have both cautioned against placing the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM),...
Diaspora disaster relief mobilisation has moved into a targeted phase where relief supplies are being sourced to assist critical areas to get the country back up and running. To this end, relief efforts are being focused on getting generators,...
The Jamaica Customs Agency (JCA) is advising that the Government has extended the timeframe, to December 31, for the suspension of import duty and general consumption tax (GCT) on relief items imported in support of Jamaica’s national recovery...
WESTERN BUREAU: Architectural designer and construction project manager Curtis Hylton believes that it is time for Jamaica to embrace a housing model once dismissed as “unconventional” - retrofitted container homes - as a practical solution for...
The Police High Command is to investigate reports that women have been sexually assaulted in shelters established following the passage of Hurricane Melissa. Responding to questions posed by The Gleaner during yesterday’s special press briefing on...
The official number of communities marooned a week after the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa has moved up to 27 even as the Government says it has intensified its efforts to reach people desperately in need of aid. On Monday, there were 25...
Western Bureau: When the full history of the $1-trillion devastation left behind in western Jamaica by Hurricane Melissa is written, several of the region’s historic landmarks will be numbered among the facilities that were either badly damaged or...
Western Bureau: Despite the massive dislocation and spin-off hardship left behind by Hurricane Melissa, residents in western Jamaica are determined to make the best of a bad situation, demonstrating tremendous resilience and courage, not only...
Jamaica Broilers Group Limited (JBG) says it has a significant inventory of chicken products and restarted distribution on October 31, three days after the passage of Hurricane Melissa. Ian Parsard, JBG’s senior vice-president of finance and...
Several residents of St Catherine who suffered significant damage to their homes as a result of Hurricane Melissa’s outer bands are expressing frustration that their cries for help have gone unanswered by the authorities. Although the core of the...
Taxi operators between Santa Cruz and several hurricane-ravaged communities in northern St Elizabeth have hiked their fares by more than 400 per cent, angry residents have complained. Instead of the $350 fare that existed before the passage of...
Retired former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson has indicated that the island’s two main political parties and parliamentary system must be pivotal in the rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, and that now is not the time for...
Several Jamaican workers of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) in Canada have lost their homes and businesses as a result of Hurricane Melissa, and some are still unable to reach their families. However, Althea Riley, chief liaison...
In the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa – a Category 5 system that ravaged sections of Jamaica – Jamaica’s forests tell a story of both devastation and endurance. Across several parishes, trees have taken on a scorched appearance – leaves browned,...
Amid scenes and images of the widespread devastation to the island’s southwestern coastal parishes following the passage of the record-breaking Category 5 Hurricane Melissa, former Prime Minister PJ Patterson is urging Jamaica and Jamaicans to...
At least one economist has indicated that the damage to the country’s infrastructure, spanning housing, water, electricity, telecommunications, and roads could reach an estimated US$16 billion (J$2.5 trillion) or potentially up to at least 75 per...
An open cellar beneath the ruins of her house is where Juliet Clarke now lives with her three-year-old granddaughter and a mentally-disabled man she cares for, but that has not shaken her faith. The cellar is all that is left of her house, perched...
When Hurricane Melissa flattened crops and stripped Jamaica’s hillsides bare, few thought about the smallest victims – the bees. But for Laura Littlebear of Greater Good Charities, saving these pollinators is key to rebuilding the island’s...
Despite a threat from disgruntled students at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, to stage a sit in, the St Andrew-located institution resumed classes on Monday. Like other tertiary institutions and schools islandwide, classes were...
Western Bureau: The powerful Category 5 Hurricane Melissa battered Hanover, Westmoreland, Trelawny, St Elizabeth, and sections of St James, forcing temporary hotel closures and displacing hundreds of hospitality workers. Yet Jamaica’s tourism...
Twenty-one emergency medical teams (EMT) from 14 international organisations have expressed their readiness to support Jamaica’s recovery efforts following the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa. Luis De La Fuente, regional EMT adviser for...
Western Bureau: When Dr Alison Thompson and her team arrived in western Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa, what they found stunned even a veteran of more than two decades travelling to disaster zones. Entire communities were cut off, shops stripped...
Almost a week after Hurricane Melissa delivered a catastrophic blow to sections of southern and western Jamaica, the Government reported yesterday that there are still 25 marooned communities. As the cry for food, water and other items of need gets...
Teniesha Kelly believes it was divine intervention that spared her family’s lives as Hurricane Melissa – a deadly Category 5 storm – tore through her Windsor, St Ann community, flattening homes and sending zinc sheets flying through the night sky...
Former colleagues of the late Professor Christopher Andre Duane Charles, who died last week, are remembering him as a brilliant academic and fearless researcher whose incisive commentary and deep analyses shaped thr understanding of Caribbean...
