The passage of tropical cyclone Chido devastated the Mayotte archipelago. The toll is getting worse, with at least 14 dead and 250 injured.
In Mayotte, the toll is getting worse. Cyclone Chido blew particularly violent winds on the archipelago, reaching 200 or even 230 km/h on Saturday, destroying many precarious habitats and devastating the port of Mamoudzou. According to a provisional report announced Sunday, December 15 in the morning, at least 14 people died, and 250 were injured, reports West France. “Many Mahorais have lost everything,” noted the prefect of Mayotte, François-Xavier Bieuville, on Saturday evening. “Entire neighborhoods are destroyed.”
As of Thursday, schools were closed on the archipelago due to the arrival of the cyclone. The winds hitting Mayotte are even more violent than those of Cyclone Kamisy in 1984 which left thousands homeless and affected the population of the territory, today the poorest department in France, notes BFMTV. On Friday night, the maximum alert level was triggered, the purple alert, which called residents for strict confinement, including rescue and security services.
Bruno Retailleau on site Monday
And already, the damage is increasing. In videos shared on social networks, residents show trees uprooted by the violence of the winds, houses being destroyed or dilapidated before their eyes, with roofs torn off. “The situation is catastrophic,” lamented the president of the association of mayors of this French overseas department, Madi Madi Souf. According to the resigning Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, “more than 15,000 homes are cut off from electricity”, she indicated in a post on X on Saturday.
The purple alert was lifted late Saturday morning, downgraded to red alert, so that “emergency services can provide assistance to those who need it most”, explained the prefecture. Bruno Retailleau, resigned Minister of the Interior, announced that “110 civil security soldiers and firefighters have been sent and are on site”. He added that a second dispatch would take place on Sunday, with 140 additional agents. An A400M plane with humanitarian cargo and civil security resources will also be sent “as early as this evening”, resigned Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu declared on Saturday.
An interministerial crisis meeting was organized at the Ministry of the Interior on Saturday evening, in the presence of the new Prime Minister, François Bayrou. The resigning Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, will visit the archipelago on Monday, December 16 and says he fears that the human toll “will be heavy”.
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