Rescuers and aid workers fanned out across Jamaica on Saturday to distribute food and water and reach communities still isolated four days after Hurricane Melissa hit the island.

T he death toll from Hurricane Melissa has risen to 28 in Jamaica, the country's prime minister said in an update Saturday, days after the powerful hurricane made landfall as a Category 5 storm and tore through the island.

Hurricane Melissa brought hurricane-force gusts to Bermuda overnight and will weaken as it heads north, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Maps show its forecast path.

Designed to withstand 150-mph winds, the egg farm Osbourne Brumley built with his life savings in western Jamaica's St. Elizabeth parish proved no match for Category 5 Hurricane Melissa.

Parts of the Caribbean began surveying the damage caused by the deadly Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in Jamaica as a powerful Category 5.

Hurricane Melissa brought devastation and death to the Caribbean as it tore through the region as one of the most powerful storms on earth in more than 150 years.

The National Hurricane Center's 5 p.m. Thursday update reported that Category 2 Hurricane Melissa is in the Atlantic Ocean, 325 miles west-southwest of Bermuda. The hurricane is moving northeast at 31 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba overnight after battering Jamaica as one of the most powerful landfalling storms in Atlantic basin history.

The prime minister ordered mandatory evacuations as officials braced for tens of thousands to be displaced. Three people were killed and 13 others injured during preparations for the storm, the health minister said.

Hurricane Melissa is among the strongest hurricanes to have formed in the Atlantic Ocean since records were kept, ranking as one the most powerful storms in terms of both wind strength and pressure.