This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: It took around 480,000 trucks to haul away 4.8 million metric tons (5.3 million tons) of rubble across western Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa tore through the Caribbean in 2025, United Nations satellites showed. The strongest hurricane on record in Jamaica, the Category 5 storm flooded plantain farms, blew the roofs off 120,000 homes and knocked out power across much of the island.
The Planning Institute of Jamaica put the cost of damage and losses at up to $12.2 billion—56.7% of the country's 2024 gross domestic product, or GDP. But disaster insurance and catastrophe bond payouts covered only around 2%, according to a recent Science analysis by Northeastern civil and environmental engineering professor Auroop R. Ganguly, Northeastern College of Engineering graduate student Aayushi Mishra and their colleagues.
Jamaica became a poster child for financial responsibility after spending a decade digging its way out of debt, but the reputation meant nothing when the storm left it in desperate need of more funds—and a brand-new mountain of loans to repay, the analysis found. Countries along the Atlantic coast from the Caribbean to the Middle Americas are facing the same problem. "It could be wildfires, could be floods, could be any kind of impact that would need debt for its recovery," Mishra said.
Even earthquakes or cyberattacks count, since they have similar implications for infrastructure, Ganguly said. The researchers suggest a four-pronged solution for escaping from this vicious cycle, known as the climate debt doom loop. It calls for tweaking current financing, repayment and insurance policies to allow countries to invest in their own resilience.
Ultimately, "the point isn't to just keep getting bigger and bigger insurance coverage," Mishra said. "It's to rethink the system that keeps countries trapped." Just over a month before Melissa struck, the credit rating company Standard and Poor's upgraded Jamaica's rating, recognizing the years it kept spending in check while consistently chipping away at its debt bills. "They cut their debt down in half in just 10 years, which is unheard of," Mishra said.
It took mere hours for that progress to get swept away. Three mechanisms drive the doom loop, the researchers argue. First, countries feel pressured to pay off debt instead of building drainage systems, coastal barriers and other defenses.
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