“The situation is catastrophic,” lamented the president of the association of mayors of this French overseas department, Madi Madi Souf. “We do not know if there are any victims, but given the damage it is probable,” added this elected official, contacted by telephone while he was in mainland France.
“Thousands of homes are without electricity. Even the emergency services are confined, there is no network, we cannot get in touch with the people on the island. We fear discovering a catastrophe,” the president of the national union of professional firefighters of Mayotte, Abdoul Karim Ahmed Allaoui, testified on BFMTV.
The eye of the cyclone swept across northern Mayotte early in the morning, and was located around 10:45 a.m. Paris time (12:45 p.m. local) west of the Indian Ocean archipelago, according to satellite images . It was heading towards the coast of Mozambique on the African continent, leaving behind a trail of still intense winds and rain. In its latest bulletin at 7 a.m. Paris time (9 a.m. local time), Météo France already described winds at 180 km/h which could reach 200 to 230 km/h.
Winds greater, according to the meteorological service, than the intensity of cyclone Kamisy in 1984 which left thousands homeless and affected the population of the territory, today the poorest department in France. Taking refuge in his bathtub, Pierre, a resident of Mamoudzou, described an “atrocious” situation.
From Ouangani Town Hall, Mayor Youssouf Ambdi said he feared “the worst”. “It's banging everywhere: we can't go out but what's in front of us is impressive. There is sure to be material damage. Let us pray that there are no victims,” he testified.
Ibrahim Mcolo, a resident of Chiconi in the west of Grande-Terre, took refuge in his family's concrete house in Kangani, in the north of the island. “I see all the neighbors' metal sheets flying away, cables torn out, the neighbor's banana tree on the ground. There is no more electricity. Even in our house which is well protected, water enters. I feel her trembling.”
“Mayotte has a large population who live in slums, in the heights, with precarious housing. But we discover that even people who are in permanent homes are not spared,” noted the fire chief.
The purple cyclone alert, triggered at 5 a.m. local time (3 a.m. in Paris), involves “strict confinement of the entire population, including emergency and security services and all agents mobilized to manage the crisis,” specifies a press release published on X from the prefecture of Mayotte.
Calm hoped for at the end of the day
“We are very afraid,” said Fatima, a resident of Majicavo-Koropa still marked by the passage of a cyclone when she was a child in the neighboring Comoros, remembering the “waves (which) ravaged everything”. This mother of three stocked up on bottles of water, food and candles.
Traffic has been banned on public roads on the two islands, Grande-Terre and Petite-Terre, and Dzaoudzi airport is closed. Météo-France forecasters anticipate an improvement in weather conditions “from Saturday at the end of the day”.
For those living in precarious housing, of which there are many in the department, the prefect had earlier advised to join one of the 71 accommodation centers “open to all” in schools and gymnasiums. The priority concerns are the approximately 100,000 people living in “unstable housing” which have been identified by the authorities, out of a total population estimated at 320,000 inhabitants in the archipelago.
