A former Jamaican Olympic sprint athlete has described the destruction left by Hurricane Melissa as like a “world war, where somebody drops a bomb”.
The category 5 hurricane made landfall in Jamaica at the end of October with wind speeds of 185mph, making it the worst storm to hit the Caribbean country since records began. It then went on to impact Haiti and Cuba.
Speaking exclusively to Sky News, Asafa Powell, alongside American Olympic gold medallist Noah Lyles, described the aftermath of the worst natural disaster to hit Jamaica and why they have teamed up to provide relief to those most affected.
“I think the world is mourning for Jamaica right now and I am mourning for Jamaica,” Powell said.
“My heart is just crying every day when I see the videos. It doesn’t do it justice.
“You have to see it in person, when you see it in person… there’s no greenery, everything is just brown. It’s like a world war, where somebody drops a bomb, that’s what it looks like.”
Powell represented Jamaica at four Olympics over his career – beginning in 2004 in Athens.
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Despite not winning individual gold at an Olympics or World Championships he claimed gold as part of the 4x100m relay team, which included Usain Bolt at the Rio Games in 2016.
Individually he set the 100m world record twice, clocking 9.77 seconds in 2005 and then 9.74 in 2007.
The latest official figures from the Jamaican government on Wednesday confirmed 45 deaths with 15 people still missing.
Lyles, who won gold in the 100m in a photo finish by 0.005 seconds and bronze in the 200m sprints at the Paris Olympics in 2024, explained why his charity – the Lyles Brothers Sports Foundation – wanted to support the Jamaican people.
“We know that there are tonnes of people who are helping out right now, and there are other foundations that you can go to, but we really wanted to make sure that not just Junelle’s [Junelle Bromfield] community but a lot of the other communities surrounding that area got support,” Lyles said.
After the Paris Olympics, the 28-year-old announced his engagement to fellow sprint athlete and Jamaican-born Junelle Bromfield in October 2024 in a social media post.
He said: “As Junelle says, St Elizabeth is the Bread Basket Parish. It provides food to the rest of the island. And if you don’t have food, then it doesn’t matter if you make it to the next day, you need something to eat, you need something to drink, you need to be able to keep the energy and the spirits up.”
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After making landfall, the Jamaican government formally declared the island a disaster area, saying almost every parish had reported blocked roads, fallen trees and major flooding.
The World Bank estimates the physical damage from Hurricane Melissa to Jamaica amounts to US$8.8bn, or 41% of Jamaica’s 2024 GDP. The impact of that damage was witnessed firsthand by Powell.
He said: “I wanted to see, just to get a visual of everything that’s going on, what’s happened on the island. I drove to Montego Bay, Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, and to be honest, I was scared, I was so shocked.
“I was scared to look left or right because there were just people on both sides of the road hoping that help was coming.
“People with kids, young babies, and it was devastating for me. I see houses under water, you know, three-storey houses, you see places where houses used to be… and it’s really bad.”
On the emotional toll it has brought to him personally while providing supplies, Powell said it was never something he thought he would witness in his country.
He said: “To see people, your people, struggling like that – never in a million years we thought Jamaica would have ever been like this and like I said, driving through it, it looked like somebody dropped a bomb on that side of Jamaica.
“Everyone is trying to help, you know, with whatever little they can help with.”
He continued: “Jamaica is very small, but it’s big in a sense, like Jamaicans say, we’re ‘likkle but we tallawah’.
“So there are a lot more communities to be touched and we’re going to get there, but it’s taking a while, but we’re getting a lot of support and I really appreciate that.”
