'We are hungry' - picking up the pieces after Melissa's destruction

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

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Residents jam a street in Black River, Jamaica, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa

In Jamaica, government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach dozens of isolated communities in the island’s southeast 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 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.

Emergency relief flights were landing at Jamaica's main international airport as crews distributed water, medicine and other basic supplies. Helicopters dropped food as they thrummed above communities where the storm flattened homes, wiped out roads and destroyed bridges, cutting them off from assistance.

"The entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened," education minister Dana Morris Dixon said.

Officials said at least 19 people have died in Jamaica, including a child, and they expected the death toll to keep rising. In one isolated community, residents pleaded with officials to remove the body of one victim tangled in a tree. On Thursday, dozens of US search-and-rescue experts landed in Jamaica along with their dogs.

More than 13,000 people remained crowded into shelters, with 72% of the island without power and only 35% of mobile phone sites in operation, officials said. People clutched cash as they formed long lines at the few petrol stations and supermarkets open in affected areas.

"We understand the frustration, we understand your anxiety, but we ask for your patience," said Daryl Vaz, Jamaica's telecommunications and energy minister.