Hurricane Melissa, which is stronger than Hurricane Katrina, is set to bring catastrophic winds, flash flooding and high storm surges to the island of Jamaica.

The scale of the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa is emerging, with dozens of people known to have died in Haiti and four deaths reported in Jamaica - and the storm is now approaching the Bahamas.

At first light on Wednesday, the coastal communities of southwestern Jamaica bore the devastation of being in the direct path of Hurricane Melissa.

Follow live updates on Hurricane Melissa as the death toll reaches 38 people. Recovery efforts are underway in Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

A total of 49 people have died in Melissa's charge across the Caribbean - 19 in Jamaica alone. My team and I headed from Kingston airport, towards where the hurricane made landfall, referred to as "ground zero" of this crisis.

David Muir has been praised for his reporting on Hurricane Melissa as ABC viewers shared their heartbreak over the destruction the storm caused. On ABC World News Tonight, the journalist revealed that search and rescue missions were underway across Jamaica after the hurricane slammed the Caribbean island with 185 mph winds and massive flooding.

Melissa is forecast to become the first Category 5 landfall in the Atlantic Basin since Dorian roared into the Bahamas in 2019. There have been 32 Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic since the use of satellites began in 1966, with 13 of those having formed in the past nine years.