Hurricane Melissa live updates: No official death toll in Jamaica

As of 5 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Hurricane Melissa was a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 115 mph moving northeast across Cuba.

Melissa -- the strongest hurricane on record to hit Jamaica -- made landfall on Cuba early on Wednesday near the city of Chivirico in the southeastern province of Santiago de Cuba.

Melissa is forecast to move off the northern coast of Cuba on Wednesday morning as it heads towards the Bahamas. It is expected to pass through the Bahamas as a Category 2 storm in the afternoon. A Hurricane Warning is in effect for the southeastern and central Bahamas.

Rain totals could reach 25 inches for higher elevations in Cuba and 5 to 10 inches of rain is expected across the southeastern Bahamas.

Storm surge is still affecting the islands. Cuba is experiencing a surge of up to 12 feet along the southeast coast, with 5 to 8 feet of surge possible in the southeastern Bahamas through Wednesday.

As Melissa moves into the Atlantic Ocean, it is expected to pass close to Bermuda late on Thursday. The archipelago is under a Hurricane Watch.

-ABC News' Kenton Gewecke and Samantha Wnek

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba early Wednesday morning as a Category 3 storm, the National Hurricane Center confirmed in a bulletin.

The NHC said the storm remains "extremely dangerous" with maximum sustained winds near 120 mph.

Melissa made landfall in the province of Santiago de Cuba near the city of Chivirico, the NHC said.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said his nation had been "ravaged" by the passage of Hurricane Melissa on Tuesday, but said the country "will rebuild and we will do so even better than before."

"Tonight I encourage Jamaicans to be hopeful," Holness wrote in a post to X, sharing a video clip of an interview broadcast on CNN.

"I know many, especially those in the worst affected parishes, are feeling disheartened," he said. "Your homes may have been damaged or destroyed and your communities and towns no longer look the same."

"I know your pain and I feel your loss," Holness said. "We are mobilizing quickly to start the relief and recovery efforts and we will be there with you every step of the way."

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration was "prepared to move" on sending humanitarian aid to Jamaica, amid the devastation wrought there by Hurricane Melissa.

"On a humanitarian basis, we have to," Trump told reporters while on his trip to Asia. "We're watching it closely, and we're prepared to move, but you know, it's doing tremendous damages as we speak."

"I've never seen, I guess, it can get that high, but I've never seen it," Trump added. "And it's literally just, you know, knocking down everything in front of it. It's, it's a stage five, I guess. And you don't see stage five, you don't see five, you see fours and threes. But this is a five early on, meaning it gets worse."

-ABC News' Lalee Ibssa