At least 20 people, including 10 children, have died and 10 are missing after a river overflowed in southern Haiti, authorities said, making the impoverished Caribbean country the worst hit by Hurricane Melissa in terms of death toll.

Speaking to Agence France-Presse, Haiti’s director general of Civil Protection, Emmanuel Pierre, said the search for the missing was continuing in the coastal community of Petit Goave.

The La Digue River overflowed, washing away many homes in the coastal town, according to residents. “People were killed, houses were washed away,” said one resident, Steve Luisen.

Hurricane Melissa is the strongest to make landfall in 90 years, according to an AFP analysis based on meteorological data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

It made landfall on Tuesday in Jamaica and then on to Cuba, where, according to the Cuban president, it caused “significant damage”.

Today, a UN official in Jamaica said the devastation caused has reached “unprecedented levels” as Cyclone Melissa is the strongest in the country’s history.

“From what we know so far, there has been massive, unprecedented destruction of infrastructure, property, roads, communication networks and electricity”Dennis Zulu, the UN coordinator for several Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, said via video call from Kingston.

“People are in shelters across the country and right now, our preliminary assessments show that the country is devastated at a level we’ve never seen before.”he added, citing an initial estimate of one million people affected.

According to reports so far, the hurricane has killed at least 30 people in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Haiti.

The US is in contact with the governments of Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today. “We have rescue and response teams heading to the affected areas along with critical relief supplies,” Rubio said in a post on Platform X.