IN PICTURES – Cyclone Chido, the most intense that Mayotte has experienced in 90 years, devastated the Indian Ocean territory, where around a third of the population lives in precarious housing, completely destroyed.
Life resumes as best it can on Wednesday in Mayotte, which comes out of a first night under curfew, put in place to ensure security and avoid looting after the deadly passage of Cyclone Chido in the archipelago, where Emmanuel Macron is expected Thursday. According to provisional official figures, the cyclone left 31 dead and 1,373 injured, even if the authorities fear a much heavier toll in the poorest department in France, where relief efforts are underway four days after the natural disaster.
On the archipelago with its disfigured landscape, the inhabitants of the precarious neighborhoods of the capital Mamoudzou try on Wednesday with the means at hand to tinker with what can be done, by hammering the sheet metal or putting a makeshift roof on their homes blown by the wind. Further away, bulldozers are working to restore the heliport of the Mayotte hospital center (CHM), which was hard hit but which continues to operate. To alleviate the emergency, more than 100 tonnes of water and food must be distributed during the day, resigning Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau assured Wednesday.
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“Millions of liters of water”
Cyclone Chido, the most intense that Mayotte has experienced in 90 years, devastated the Indian Ocean territory, where around a third of the population lives in precarious housing, which has been completely destroyed. Cyclones usually develop in the Indian Ocean from November to March. This year, surface waters were close to 30°C in the area, which provides more energy for storms, a phenomenon linked to global warming also observed this fall in the North Atlantic and the Pacific.
In Mayotte, a field hospital with around a hundred medical beds will be set up “by the end of the week” or “beginning of next week” pour “relieve” the CHM, announced François-Noël Buffet, resigning Minister of Overseas Territories.
A “national mourning”
President Emmanuel Macron, who promised on Monday to decree a “national mourning”is expected on site Thursday. Its new Prime Minister François Bayrou, criticized for having favored the municipal council of Pau on Monday in the midst of the Mahoran crisis, will go there once his government is formed. “I have never seen a disaster of this magnitude on national soil. I think of the children who saw their houses blown up, whose schools were almost all destroyed”he reacted Tuesday evening.
In addition to the question of reconstruction, establishing a human toll is one of the authorities’ priorities. Bruno Retailleau has “given instructions” to dispatch gendarmes to the field to establish this macabre count, made all the more delicate as the neighboring archipelago of the Comoros is a land of strong Muslim tradition: according to the rites of Islam, the deceased must be buried as quickly as possible .
Reconstruction
To prevent looting, a curfew has been in place since Tuesday evening from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Some 2,000 members of the police are or will be mobilized. You have to be able to “ensure public order so as not to add disorder to disorder”also declared Bruno Retailleau, regretting that two gendarmes were “injured by projectiles last night”.
Another priority: ensuring vital needs for water and food. Water supply “working at 50%” François-Noël Buffet clarified on Wednesday, but it presents a risk of “poor quality”. Electricity is only “partially restarted”. Matignon also announced that donations of up to 1,000 euros for Mayotte would entitle them to a tax reduction equal to 75% of the amount paid until May, compared to generally 66% in normal times.
