Tin houses blown away, electrical poles down, trees uprooted: Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte on Saturday morning, placed on purple alert, where barricaded residents, cut off from the world, were hit by devastating winds which raise fears “the worst“.
“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“, testified on BFMTV the president of the national union of professional firefighters of Mayotte, Abdoul Karim Ahmed Allaoui.
The eye of the cyclone swept north of 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 7:00 a.m. Paris time (9:00 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.
The purple cyclone alert, triggered at 5:00 a.m. local time (3:00 a.m. in Paris), implies “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.
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