Mayotte spent the first night under curfew. A measure put in place to ensure security after the deadly passage of Cyclone Chido. While Emmanuel Macron is expected on site on Thursday, the provisional official toll shows 31 dead and 1,373 injured, even if the authorities fear a much higher toll. In recent years, another natural phenomenon, an underwater volcano, has worried the poorest department in France. The seismic risk had also caused a change in the government plan for the archipelago airport.
What are we talking about?
In 2019, following a series of earthquakes, a scientific expedition discovered a new underwater volcano about 50 km from the coast of Mayotte and at a depth of 3,500 meters. Measuring more than 800 meters high, the volcano nicknamed Fani Maoré extends over 20 km2.
Its appearance resulted in the subsidence of Mayotte. “We lost around 20 centimeters to the east, on the Petite-Terre side, and 11 centimeters to the west,” Ludivine Sadeski, regional director of the geological and mining research office (BRGM), told AFP last August. ) from Mayotte. Lately, however, “activity has been stable. The eruption at sea stopped at the beginning of 2021,” explains Ludivine Sadeski.
A risk of earthquake?
This volcano, however, demonstrates constant activity. At the end of August, a magnitude 4.9 earthquake was recorded east of Mayotte, reported the volcanological and seismological monitoring network in Mayotte (Revosima). No material or human damage was then reported. The epicenter of the earthquake was located 40 kilometers east of Petite-Terre and 48 kilometers deep, in the area of this underwater volcano whose appearance has caused a “swarm” earthquake phenomenon since 2018. “.
“Every day, we record between 10 and 20 seismic events which are not felt. Since 2018, seismic activity has never stopped,” Ludivine Sadeski told AFP. However, “it has been several years since we had recorded an earthquake of this magnitude,” she added.
What are the consequences for the airport?
Mayotte has been waiting for years for an extension of the runway at Dzaoudzi-Pamandzi airport to allow direct wide-body flights to the metropolis 8,000 kilometers away in all weathers, without a stopover in Nairobi, Kenya. A public debate in 2011 confirmed the merits of the long runway, promised in 2019 by President Emmanuel Macron.
But the first studies showed that the current airport near Dzaoudzi on Petite-Terre “is exposed to a major geological risk linked to the presence of an underwater volcano whose impacts no one could anticipate,” recalled the minister. of Transport at the time, last May. The government then raised the possibility of building a new airport in Grande-Terre in Bouyouni without giving any indication of the date of the groundbreaking.
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