The Ja­maican gov­ern­ment says the pre­lim­i­nary es­ti­mate of the dam­age caused by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa when it slammed in­to the coun­try last Tues­day has been put at an es­ti­mat­ed cost as high as US$7 bil­lion.

Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness told Par­lia­ment on Tues­day that the fig­ure is about 32 per cent of the coun­try’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) for fis­cal year 2024/2025 and that de­tailed dam­age as­sess­ments are still un­der­way, even as he is pro­vid­ing the “very pre­lim­i­nary, high-lev­el es­ti­mates on­ly to il­lus­trate the scale of the dev­as­ta­tion”.

Hol­ness told leg­is­la­tors that the ear­ly as­sess­ment is based on bench­marks from com­pa­ra­ble re­gion­al dis­as­ters, phys­i­cal dam­age to hous­ing, com­mer­cial build­ings, roads, elec­tric­i­ty, wa­ter, and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­fra­struc­ture.