‘An apocalyptic setting’: Mayotte on Sunday lists the enormous damage sown the day before by Cyclone Chido, which left at least 14 dead in the poorest department in France, where relief efforts are being organized.
According to a very provisional assessment, this tropical cyclone of exceptional intensity has caused at least 14 deaths in the small archipelago in the Indian Ocean, a security source told AFP on Sunday morning.
According to the mayor of Mamoudzou Ambdilwahedou Soumaila interviewed by AFP, nine injured people were treated at the Mayotte Hospital Center (CHM) in absolute emergency, and 246 in relative emergency.
‘The hospital is affected, the schools are affected. Houses are totally devastated. The phenomenon spared nothing in its path,’ he described.
With gusts observed at more than 220 km/h, Cyclone Chido is the most intense to hit the overseas territory in more than 90 years, according to Météo France.
Extremely violent winds ravaged the archipelago with destroyed huts, blown off roofs, downed electricity poles, uprooted trees… Precarious housing, which concerns around a third of the archipelago’s population estimated at 320,000 inhabitants, is ‘completely destroyed’, according to the resigning Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, expected on site on Monday.
Ibrahim, a resident of Mayotte contacted by AFP, tried to reach the west of the main island on Sunday morning, clearing the roads as he went in ‘an apocalyptic setting’. ‘Only a few permanent houses held up. Nothing remains of the slums,’ he reported.
‘Too late for the illegal immigrants’
Many undocumented immigrants living in the slums have not joined the shelters provided by the prefecture ‘thinking that it would be a trap being set for them (…) to pick them up and take them outside the borders’, Ousseni Balahachi, retired nurse and CFDT departmental secretary, explained to AFP.
‘These people stayed until the last minute. When they saw the intensity of the phenomenon they began to panic, looking for somewhere to take refuge. But it was already too late, the sheets were starting to fly away,’ he regretted.
Around 100,000 people living in ‘unsound housing’, particularly in tin huts, had been identified by the authorities to be sheltered in more than 70 emergency accommodation centers.
The information provided is currently very fragmented with a population confined to their homes, in a state of astonishment, deprived of water and electricity, a source close to the matter told AFP.
Air and sea rotations
In a context of very difficult communications, the count of victims is further complicated by the Muslim tradition of a large part of the Mahorese population, who should bury their dead during the day in accordance with the precepts of Islam, indicated the ministry of the Interior.
Bruno Retailleau estimated on Saturday evening that it would ‘probably take days’ to ‘refine’ a possibly ‘heavy’ human toll.
Visiting Corsica on Sunday, the French Pope said he supported ‘in spirit’ the victims of this ‘tragedy’, following the Angelus prayer in Ajaccio Cathedral.
To coordinate relief action, the prefect of Reunion, in charge of the defense and security zone of the southern Indian Ocean, held a crisis management meeting on Sunday morning.
More than 160 civil security soldiers and firefighters from France will come to reinforce the 110 pre-positioned in the archipelago since Friday. Air and sea rotations are operational from Sunday to transport medical personnel and equipment.
Mayotte MP Estelle Youssouffa (Liot) called on X the State to declare a state of emergency to ‘protect people and property’.
According to explanations to AFP from François Gourand, forecaster at Météo-France, Cyclone Chido is ‘exceptional’ because it directly hit the archipelago, while its power was boosted by particularly warm waters in the Indian Ocean linked to climate change.
The alert level was lowered from purple to red during the day on Saturday to allow emergency services to come out, but the prefect called on the approximately 320,000 inhabitants of Mayotte to remain ‘confined’ and ‘in solidarity’ in ‘this ordeal’ .
Continuing its course, tropical cyclone Chido hit northern Mozambique on Sunday morning. Only minor damage was recorded in the neighboring Comoros islands, with no deaths.
/ATS
