SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba — The death toll from Hurricane Melissa rose on Thursday to nearly 50 people, officials said, after the ferocious storm devastated Caribbean islands and was bearing down on Bermuda.

Flooding was expected to subside in the Bahamas, although high water could persist in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

The storm, one of the most powerful ever recorded, was made four times more likely due to human-caused climate change, according to a study by Imperial College London.

Tropical storm conditions were occurring on Bermuda late Thursday and the island was under a hurricane warning, with maximum sustained winds of 100 miles (155 kilometers) per hour, the NHC said.

The government urged residents to take precautionary measures against the still-powerful storm.

Melissa smashed into both Jamaica and Cuba with enormous force, and residents were assessing their losses and the long road to recovery.

“The confirmed death toll from Hurricane Melissa is now at 19,” including nine in Westmoreland and eight in St. Elizabeth, both parishes in the Caribbean island’s hard-hit west, Jamaican Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon told local news outlets, including the Jamaica Gleaner.

Communications and transportation access remain largely down in Jamaica and Cuba, and comprehensive assessment of the........

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