“The most violent and destructive cyclone since 1934”: significant damage is to be deplored in Mayotte, the alert level lowered to red

“The situation is catastrophic”: Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte on Saturday, where its winds of at least 220 km/h devastated the French archipelago in the Indian Ocean, making residents cut off from the world fear the worst .

“Our island is currently being hit by the most violent and destructive cyclone we have experienced since 1934. Many of us have lost everything,” lamented the prefect of Mayotte, François-Xavier Bieuville.

The alert level was lowered from purple to red but “the cyclone is not over”, he stressed in a press release, calling on the population to remain “confined” and “solidarity” in “this ordeal” .

“The damage already seems very significant,” worried the resigning Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau on the social network personnel dispatched to the site.

More than 15,000 homes are without electricity, tweeted the resigning Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher. The new Prime Minister François Bayrou said on X that he kept himself “informed hour by hour”.

“The situation is catastrophic. We do not know if there are victims but given the damage it is probable,” the president of the association of mayors of this French overseas department told AFP , Madi Madi Souf, contacted by telephone while he was in mainland France, while most communications were cut off with the archipelago.

The eye of the intense tropical cyclone passed over the north and northwest of Grande-Terre late in the morning, with gusts observed reaching at least 226 km/h at the closed Pamandzi airport, according to the latest Météo-France bulletin.

It moved away to the west of Mayotte, announcing a calm at the end of the afternoon.

The archipelago had been placed on purple cyclone alert at 5:00 a.m. local time (3:00 a.m. in Paris), implying “strict confinement of the entire population”, according to the prefecture. The lowering to the red level once again allows emergency services to get out.

“There is no network, we cannot get in touch with the people who are on the island,” said the president of the national union of professional firefighters of Mayotte, Abdoul Karim, on BFMTV. Ahmed Allaoui.

“Even buildings built to seismic standards were unable to resist. The Codis (fire and rescue operational center) was evacuated and is operating in degraded mode,” he testified.

“Atrocious”

Taking refuge in his bathtub, Pierre, a resident of Mamoudzou, told AFP of an “atrocious” situation.

From Ouangani Town Hall, Mayor Youssouf Ambdi said he feared “the worst”. “Let us pray that there are no victims,” he told AFP.

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, the water is coming in. I can feel it tremble”.

“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 housing are not spared,” noted the fire chief.

Traffic has been banned on public roads on the two islands, Grande-Terre and Petite-Terre, and Dzaoudzi airport is closed.

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 “unsound housing” which have been identified by the authorities, out of a total population estimated at 320,000 inhabitants in the archipelago.