UK Helps Evacuate Britons from Jamaica amid Hurricane

The flight, which departed from Kingston's Norman Manley International Airport on Saturday, comes after Britain delivered aid under a £7.5 million regional emergency package.

Part of this money will be used to match public donations of up to £1 million to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent – ​​including those from King Charles and Queen Camilla.

Despite aid arriving in Jamaica in recent days, distribution has been complicated by road blockages following Hurricane Melissa's devastation in parts of the island and the deaths of at least 28 people.

Hurricane Melissa lashed the region for several days, leaving devastation and dozens of deaths. At least 31 people were killed in Haiti, while floods and landslides also struck Cuba.

Jamaica's Information Minister, Dana Morris-Dixon, said on Friday, "Entire communities appear to have been submerged, and some areas have been devastated."

Around 8,000 British citizens are believed to be on the island at the time of the storm.

The British Foreign Office has urged citizens to report their presence and advised travelers to contact their airlines to find out what commercial options are available.

The British initially earmarked an immediate financial assistance package of 2.5 million pounds for the region, and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper announced an additional 5 million pounds on Friday as "more information on the scale of the devastation" emerges.

The British Red Cross stated that the King and Queen's donation will help the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) "continue its life-saving work"—including search and rescue operations in Jamaica, as well as ensuring access to healthcare, safe shelter, and clean water.

The Red Cross stated that 72% of people in Jamaica still lack electricity, and approximately 6,000 are in emergency shelters.

Generators distributed by aid agencies will be crucial until the Jamaican government restores the broken power grid. 

Given the severity of the housing crisis, tarpaulins will also be crucial.

Meanwhile, with such a severe shortage of clean drinking water and basic food, patience is running out, and there are reports of desperate people rushing to supermarkets to gather and distribute whatever food they can find.

The BBC has witnessed queues at petrol stations, where people wait for hours and then, upon reaching the front of the queue, are told there is no fuel left.

Some are looking for fuel for generators, while others want to get to an area where they can contact people, as much of the island is without power.

The country's health minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, described "significant damage" across a number of hospitals on Saturday - with the Black River Hospital in St Elizabeth being the most severely affected.

"That facility will have to be for now totally relocated in terms of services," he said. "The immediate challenge of the impacted hospitals is to preserve accident and emergency services."

Dr Tufton added: "What we're seeing is that a lot of people are coming in now to these facilities with trauma-related [injuries] from falls from the roof, to ladders, to nails penetrating their feet."

The minister said arrangements had been made for the ongoing supply of fuel to the facilities as well as a daily supply of water.

Landslides, downed power lines and fallen trees have made certain roads impassable - complicating the distribution of aid across the island.

However, some of the worst affected areas of Jamaica should finally receive some relief by Sunday.