On each new photo, desolation. Cyclone Chido, the most intense that Mayotte has experienced in ninety years, devastated the Indian Ocean territory on Saturday, December 14, where around a third of the population lived in precarious housing.
Franceinfo invites you to measure the extent of the deadly disaster which struck the archipelago using satellite images from the company Maxar Technologies, taken on Monday December 16, more than forty-eight hours after the passage of the cyclone.
With gusts of more than 220 km/h, the eye of Cyclone Chido eye hit the land hard. Huts destroyed, tin roofs blown away, electric poles down, trees uprooted… Residents discovered scenes of chaos, as these satellite images of the town of Dzaoudzi and Pamandzi teach us.
The marina in the town of Dzaoudzi was heavily affected by the disaster. In the images, the vegetation has completely disappeared and the place is unrecognizable.
The town of Mamoudzou, capital of Mayotte, was devastated by the cyclone. Guest of France Inter on Tuesday, Estelle Youssouffa, Liot MP for the 1st constituency of Mayotte, explains that “the slums have been completely razed” in the city.
Each new image of Mamoudzou provides information on the violence of the meteorological phenomenon. Three days after the passage of the cyclone, and while the archipelago lacks everything, a curfew will be introduced on Tuesday evening from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. It should help prevent looting in the battered archipelago.
The port of Mamoudzou also did not resist the violent winds. In total, 70% of the inhabitants of Mayotte were “seriously affected” by Cyclone Chido, the Ministry of the Interior quantified Tuesday in a situation update. The human toll remains “very difficult to consolidate”. The ministry recorded on Tuesday 21 people dead in hospital, 45 injured in absolute emergency treated by emergency services and 1,373 in relative emergency.
The Kwalé de Mamoudzou college, located on the left of the image, was one of the more than 70 emergency accommodation centers set up by the authorities to accommodate the population during the passage of the cyclone, report our colleagues from the 1st Mayotte. Around the site, the makeshift dwellings seem to have almost disappeared.
The situation in Mayotte on Tuesday is “chaotic” lamented on franceinfo the mayor of Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila. “Access is always difficult, there are areas that are not accessible, such as holiday villages far from the city center”he describes. To facilitate research, a device for getting to “in the heights” should be implemented on Wednesday. The mayor of Mamoudzou also asked the prefect of Mayotte for “dog brigades”.
Mayotte-Dzaoudzi airport, in Petite-Terre, also suffered heavy damage, particularly to its control tower. It is closed to commercial flights until further notice. However, an airlift was set up from Reunion Island to come to the aid of the archipelago.
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