Before Cyclone Chido in Mayotte, this parliamentary report pointed out the risk of a “catastrophic outcome”

POLITICS – Who could have predicted that a cyclone of exceptional intensity would cause monumental damage and cause the death of dozens, even hundreds of people in Mayotte? In just a few hours, thousands of families lost everything. And this has nothing to do with fate, but rather with an acceleration of global warming of human origin, aggravated by the extreme poverty existing on the archipelago.

In March 2024, a group of deputies looked into the management of natural risks in the overseas territories. Led by the former LR MP for Mayotte Mansour Kamardine, they particularly insisted in their report on the situation in the Indian Ocean archipelago, which concentrates all the difficulties. The poorest department in France, it is also the overseas department with the highest population density. 815 people live there per square kilometer, compared to 14 for New Caledonia and 3 for Guyana for example.

Interviewed as part of this report, the director general of the Regional Health Authority (ARS) of Mayotte Olivier Brahic called that the archipelago is “exposed to seismic and cyclone risks”. “Given the extent of informal housing on the island (including slums, editor's note), the death toll from a cyclone would be catastrophic, he warned. In addition, the health system, already very deficit, would have great difficulty coping with a major event, especially in the current period of crisis. »

« The toll could be very heavy »

Words that resonate strangely today, even though the situation on the ground had been precisely described several months ago. Olivier Brahic had particularly insisted on the fact “that usually, a cyclone causes few trauma injuries”. But in Mayotte, “it would be very different, he predicted with terrible precision. The death toll could be very heavy in what we call the bangas, in the slums, where the flying sheets could cause very serious damage”.

And in fact, it is these poor neighborhoods that were hardest hit by the passage of the cyclone. According to the authorities, 100,000 people live in these precarious homes made of canvas, sheet metal and wood.

The situation of extreme vulnerability of the 101st French department is not only due to geographical or geological reasons, but to an acute lack of prevention and means put on the table by Paris to remedy it. “The difficulty lies, in the event of a cyclone, in the total lack of preparation of the population, unlike Reunion and the Antilles, underlined Olivier Brahic in March. In Mayotte, there is no risk culture in the territory”.

“Insufficient shelter”

“The question of financing is real”confirmed the overseas director of the French Red Cross Gaëlle Nebard. With a supporting example: the device Pangue Maoreswhich was doing prevention in schools across the archipelago, but which was forced to stop two years ago due to lack of resources. Training programs for climate hazards have also suffered from neglect. The specialist Jean-Christophe Komorowski, interviewed for the purposes of the report, insisted for his part on the need to “develop scientific university training in Mayotte so that the Mahorais, once trained in research or technology professions, can contribute to the security of their territory”.

” FurthermoreOlivier Brahic further clarified, shelter capacities are largely insufficient: the living centers, which are identified in each municipality, could accommodate 30,000 people while the population is estimated between 300,000 and 400,000 inhabitants”.

If Mayotte is today the center of all attention, other overseas departments could be affected in the near future by the same extreme phenomena. In the report, engineer Gonéri Le Cozannet was particularly concerned: “In the space of two years, what happened in Mayotte is what will happen in all the other overseas territories in the next thirty years: a rise in sea level of 20 centimeters”. And with it, possible damage to fear.

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