The government of Haiti announced on 4th November that the number of people killed by Hurricane Melissa had increased to 43, while 13 others were yet to be found.

Still trying to reach out to people in the south-west part of the country, landslides and floodwaters swept over in excess of 30 communities.

In the south-western coastal town of Petit-Goav, aside from 25 people who died, one of the worst-affected communities is.

The hurricane is the strongest Atlantic hurricane in history, and the outer bands of the storm flooded almost 12,000 homes and destroyed almost 200 others after hitting Haiti last week. There are many roads that are never accessible.

The government issued a warning that there was a drinking water shortage in a number of communities, and that, in the near future, the government would supply seeds and other tools to farmers who experienced significant losses in agriculture.

Over 1700 individuals are still housed in shelters.

At the same time, in nearby Jamaica, the crews were attempting to reach over two dozen communities that were still isolated since Melissa hit the ground on Oct. 28.

At least 32 people died in Jamaica as a result of the storm, although the officials warned that this figure would increase.

The very first estimates, according to Prime Minister Andrew Holness, on Tuesday, indicated that the hurricane caused at least six billion dollars worth of damage, which was conservative.

“Well, it is a big blow to our economy,” he said. “We have never had such a calamity of this kind.”

The U.S. State Department announced on Tuesday that it has provided disaster relief funding totaling 24 million US dollars to the Caribbean islands that were struck by Hurricane Melissa. It announced that it has set aside the sum of $12 million for Jamaica, $8.5 million to Haiti, $3 million to Cuba, and half a million to the Bahamas to date, and that it would provide additional aid after evaluations were made.

Mike Bassett, who is the national director of domestic, humanitarian, and emergency affairs of World Vision International, mentioned that a possible humanitarian crisis may arise when aid is not provided as soon as possible.

“I have been doing this for more than 10 years, and I have never witnessed anything like this,” Bassett said Tuesday when in Jamaica.

He described how, during a visit to hurricane-struck areas such as Chester Castle and Cambridge, he came across people bathing in a river and collecting its water to drink it due to no power and water supply following the hurricane.

World Vision is one among the increasingly long list of foreign aid organizations and volunteers that are operating autonomously, and in collaboration with the Jamaican officials, to distribute aid.

The relief flights are as quick and furious as they are abundant, and the supplies are not lacking at all, as said Transport and Energy Minister Daryl Vaz, who is also one of the co-chairmen of the special committee that was formed to streamline the government relief and recovery efforts.

The head of the Jamaica Social Security Ministry, Pearnel Charles Jr., announced that the relief mission has been escalated.

“We are also mobilizing all resources at our disposal”, said Charles, who had dismissed criticism that there was not enough being done to reach storm victims quickly enough.

The State Department has deployed disaster aid response units and urban search and rescue teams from Virginia and California to the affected nations with a special emphasis on Jamaica, where the storm devastation appears to have been worst.

In Jamaica, the department reported that it received approximately 800 calls of assistance requests by American citizens residing or traveling to the island, of which over half were received in the resort area, Montego Bay. It is estimated that 11,000 Americans had abandoned Jamaica, most of them without the assistance of the U.S. government.

“The funding to Cuba is being channeled through the Catholic Church and not the Cuban government agencies,” it said.