Islands start clean-up

THE rumble of large machinery, whine of chainsaws and chopping of machetes echoed through communities across the northern Caribbean as they dug out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa and assessed the damage left behind.

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In southeastern Jamaica, government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach dozens of isolated communities that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record.

Stunned residents wandered about, some staring at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings strewn around them.

"I don't have a house now," said a distressed Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of Lacovia in the southern parish of St Elizabeth, as he held onto his bicycle, the only possession of value left after the storm.