With wind gusts observed at more than 220 km/h, Cyclone Chido, the most intense to hit the overseas territory in more than 90 years, has wreaked devastation.
“The hospital is affected, the schools are affected. Houses are totally devastated. The phenomenon has spared nothing in its path,” the mayor of Mamoudzou Ambdilwahedou Soumaila described to AFP.
The huts were destroyed, the corrugated iron roofs flew away, electric poles fell to the ground, trees and bamboo were broken… Most of the roads are impassable, communications extremely difficult.
Precarious housing, which concerns around a third of the archipelago’s population estimated at 320,000 inhabitants, is “completely destroyed” and many public service installations have been destroyed or damaged, forcing the authorities to operate in degraded conditions, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
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 stood. Nothing remains of the slums,” he reported.
Many undocumented immigrants living in the slums had 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 started to panic, looking for somewhere to take refuge. But it was already too late, the metal sheets were starting to fly away “, he regretted.
Guillaume, a Belgian on vacation in Mayotte: “It feels like Mad Max”
The Pope in solidarity
The population was in a state of astonishment on Sunday, deprived of water and electricity, a source close to the authorities told AFP.
Visiting Corsica on Sunday, Pope Francis said he supported “in spirit” the victims of this “tragedy”, following the Angelus prayer at Ajaccio Cathedral.
Mayotte MP Estelle Youssouffa (Liot) called on X the State to declare a state of emergency to “protect people and property”.
The cyclone alert was lowered from red to orange late Sunday afternoon in Mayotte. Continuing its course, Cyclone Chido hit northern Mozambique on Sunday morning. Only minor damage was recorded in the neighboring Comoros islands, with no deaths.
