AP Santiago de Cuba

Hurricane Melissa left at least dozens dead and caused widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and water-logged furniture dominated the landscape on Wednesday.

A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz in Jamaica's St. Elizabeth parish, where the streets were reduced to mud pits. Residents swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings. Wind ripped off part of the roof at a high school that serves as a public shelter. "I never see anything like this before in all my years living here," resident Jennifer Small said. 

The extent of the damage from the deadly hurricane was unclear on Wednesday as widespread power outages and dangerous conditions persisted in the region. "It is too early for us to say definitively," said Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica's education minister.

Melissa made landfall on Tuesday in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 295 kph, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, before weakening and moving on to Cuba, but even countries outside the direct path of the massive storm felt its devastating effects. At least 25 people have died across Haiti and 18 are missing, Haiti's Civil Protection Agency said in a statement on Wednesday.