PANews reported on October 31 that, according to Decrypt, Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica this week. As the strongest cyclone in decades, it caused widespread power and telecommunications outages and severely disrupted communications. Data from network monitoring agency NetBlocks showed that the national network connectivity rate dropped to about 30% of normal, with strong winds and line breaks causing widespread internet disruptions. During this time, downloads of the peer-to-peer instant messaging app Bitchat, which can operate without an internet connection, surged in Jamaica. According to AppFigures data, at the time of writing, Bitchat ranked first among social networking apps for Apple users and second in the overall free app charts for both Apple and Android. Its developer, Calle, stated on the X platform that this was the first time the app's downloads had surged due to a natural disaster.