UK aid in Jamaica as flights home begin after Melissa
British aid touched down in Jamaica early on Saturday 1 November, hours before the UK’s first chartered flight is due to start taking citizens home. If you’re following from a classroom or from the island itself, we’ll walk through what help is arriving, how donation matching works, why aid can be slow to reach people, and what a repatriation flight means for travellers.
The cargo flight delivered more than 3,000 emergency shelter kits as part of a £7.5m regional response funded by the UK. Ministers first released £2.5m in immediate support and, on Friday, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed a further £5m as assessments made the scale of damage clearer. Part of this money will match public donations up to £1m to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.
Donation matching is simple but powerful. For every pound you give to the Red Cross appeal while the match is active, the UK government adds another pound until the £1m cap is reached. The British Red Cross says these funds help the IFRC keep search-and-rescue going, support field clinics, and get safe shelter and clean water to people. King Charles and Queen Camilla are among those who have donated, a symbolic nudge for the public to join in.
Getting aid out is hard because the storm broke the routes that aid needs. Jamaica’s Information Minister, Dana Morris Dixon, said entire communities are cut off and some areas look flattened. Landslides, fallen trees and downed power lines have made key roads impassable, which slows every delivery and forces agencies to rely on helicopters where they can.
As of Saturday morning, 1 November, the Red Cross reported that about 72% of people across Jamaica still had no electricity and around 6,000 people were in emergency shelters. Until the grid is repaired, generators are critical for clinics, shelters and water pumping, and tarpaulins matter because thousands of homes no longer have secure roofs.
Health services are under pressure. Jamaica’s Health Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, described significant damage at several hospitals, with Black River Hospital in St Elizabeth the worst affected and services being relocated. The immediate focus is to keep accident and emergency units running as people arrive with trauma injuries from roof repairs and debris, while fuel and daily water supplies are being prioritised for the facilities.
Relief is moving, even if it feels slow. One example: Global Empowerment Mission rolled out a seven‑truck convoy from Kingston to Black River, carrying humanitarian packs many of you in the Jamaican diaspora in Florida helped assemble. Other aid groups and foreign governments are flying support by helicopter into hard‑to‑reach districts. Officials say more is on the way.
Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica on Tuesday 28 October as a Category 5 storm, among the most powerful ever recorded in the Caribbean. Quick explainer: the Saffir–Simpson scale classifies hurricanes by sustained wind speed; Category 5 means winds of at least 157 mph (252 km/h). The category tells you about wind damage, but not the full flood risk from rain and storm surge, which often causes the most harm.
The human toll stretches beyond Jamaica. Melissa moved through the region over several days, leaving dozens dead: at least 19 people in Jamaica and at least 30 in Haiti, with Cuba also seeing floods and landslides. For learners tracking sources, these numbers come from government briefings and Red Cross updates and may rise as access improves.
If you are a British national in Jamaica, the first UK charter is scheduled to leave Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport late on Saturday 1 November. Repatriation flights are government‑organised services used when commercial routes are disrupted. You should register your presence with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and contact your airline to check if commercial options have restarted, as advised by the UK government.
Fuel and communication are the hidden threads in every disaster. The BBC has seen long queues at petrol stations, with some drivers waiting for hours only to find the pumps empty. People are searching for fuel for generators to keep fridges, phones and medical equipment running, or to make a drive to a location with patchy signal so they can contact family.
What to watch next: power restoration, clear roads into marooned communities, and weather alerts for fresh landslides as ground stays water‑logged. If you wish to help from the UK, cash donations to trusted organisations such as the Red Cross are usually the fastest way to turn generosity into supplies. For students and teachers, this is a real‑world case study in how logistics, public health and civic giving fit together during a crisis.