In today’s newsletter: Meteorologists have called it ‘a dire situation unfolding in slow motion’ – what will it leave behind?

Good morning. Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm to hit Jamaica since records began in 1851, made landfall at about midday local time on Tuesday. With winds reaching 185mph and torrential rains, it knocked out power lines, cut off the internet, and demolished buildings; the death toll and extent of the damage are still unknown.

The storm has already hit Haiti and the Dominican Republic; though it was at one stage downgraded to a tropical storm, now it has strengthened again and is expected to arrive imminently in Cuba, where more than 700,000 people have been evacuated. “The reports that are coming in are catastrophic,” Jamaican energy and transport minister Daryl Vaz told Sky News. “Not very much survives a Category 5 hurricane, in terms of infrastructure.”

Economy | Rachel Reeves has said Britain can defy gloomy economic forecasts after the fiscal watchdog infuriated ministers by predicting a productivity downgrade would leave her with a £20bn gap to fill in her forthcoming budget.

Sudan | Ethnically motivated mass killings and other atrocities are being reported from El Fasher after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took control of the city in Sudan’s western Darfur region over the weekend.

UK news | Downing Street has defended the prospect of paying more to house asylum seekers in disused barracks instead of hotels, arguing that quelling public disquiet was worth the extra cost. No 10 said that “communities don’t want asylum seekers housed in hotels, and neither does the government”.

Middle East | Israeli warplanes struck Gaza on Tuesday night, shortly after Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered the military to carry out “powerful strikes” in Gaza, in the most serious test of the increasingly shaky US-brokered ceasefire.

Television | Prunella Scales, the actor best known for playing Sybil Fawlty in the classic comedy series Fawlty Towers, has died aged 93. Scales, who was married to fellow actor Timothy West, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2013.