one week later, how can we completely rebuild Mayotte, the poorest department in France?

Cyclone Chido plunged Mayotte to the bottom of the abyss. The population has been left behind for a long time, denounce the local residents as well as the Mahorese community in Reunion. Several solidarity actions have also been put in place.

Many people are without shelter, without water and without food… A situation that the Elysée tried to resolve with the presidential visit of Emmanuel Macron, on site. At the end of a two-day field visit, the Head of State promised to “rebuild Mayotte”.

Watch the report from Réunion La 1ère:

A week after the passage of Cyclone Chido, how to rebuild Mayotte sustainably?

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©Reunion the 1st

According to Copernicus, the European program aimed at creating a European Earth observation capacity, 56% of buildings were destroyed or damaged in the North/East of the archipelago.

The majority of buildings in the center of Mamoudzou have been wiped off the map. All that remains is a pile of rubble that must be reconstructed.

A situation that is all the more worrying in the middle of the hurricane season. “There is an emergency”according to the spokesperson for the RéMa collective (Réunion-Mayotte), invited on the set of Réunion La 1ère in the special Mayotte edition, presented by Gaëlle Malet.

“Mayotte does not have time to wait. Mayotte is the size of a city in France, which means that if France wants it, it can restore Mayotte by putting in the human and financial resources. People do not drink or eat. They are being looted. People are sleeping outside, and we are told, we are still waiting.

Amina Djoumoi, spokesperson for the RéMa collective

So, how can we rebuild Mayotte in the short and long term? Prime Minister François Bayrou is launching a call for projects on pre-fabricated housing. This is a bad idea according to the architects of the emergency.

We use materials that can be local. In this case, there are compressed earth brick sectors that exist, so you might as well use it. We must increase the local workforce as much as possible and make people work locally rather than importing things as much as possible, and especially not pre-fabricated products because in terms of carbon footprint, it's a disaster. . Obviously, it ends up in a slum. It doesn't cost very much to do. We will say that in three months it can be done. These are quite rustic houses, but if we know how, it will be both seismic and paracyclonic.

Patrick Coulombel, co-founder of emergency architects

If the time is urgent, some have been thinking about sustainable construction solutions for several years. In the west of the archipelago, Thibaut Fung Kwok China is developing the bamboo sector for civil and agricultural construction. It takes only four days to build a structure on your own.

I have a bamboo frame, built three years ago, under construction, particularly with interns. It is an anti-cyclonic greenhouse model. It is a small structure measuring 4.5 meters wide by 8 meters long. It is resistant to cyclones. The proof is, after Cyclone Chido, the framework is still there. The roof has of course flown off, but the frame is intact.

Thibaut Fung Kwok China, Reunion architect

Bamboo is a resilient resource that grows quickly. These are the two major arguments for the Reunion architect.

“We see that most of the trees have been laid down. They have been deprived of their leaves and that they will have a lot of difficulty getting back up. This is different from bamboo, where a good majority of the canes have resisted, and this, despite the fact that their upper part is folded”, underlines the architect.

In Mayotte, the poorest department in France, in 2017, according to the latest figures from INSEE, 4 out of 10 housing units were made of sheet metal, wood or earth, like 20 years ago.

Only 10% of the real estate stock is insured in Mayotte, but Emmanuel Macron announced the establishment of a compensation fund for those who are not insured.