Mayotte, the poorest French department, is in ruins after the passage of Cyclone Chido on December 14. With gusts exceeding 220 km/h – unheard of in almost a century – the Indian Ocean archipelago is unrecognizable. According to prefect François-Xavier Bieuville, « hundreds, even thousands of people » would have perished. The hospital system is « very damaged » and medical centers are « inoperative »according to the government.
Images from the Labattoir district of Dzaoudzi show homes gutted, roofs torn off, windows broken, and shanty towns reduced to piles of twisted and deformed metal. The port is littered with stranded boats, stacked on top of each other. « We no longer even recognize our streets and our neighborhoods »testifies a Mahoraise in Liberation. The uprooted trees and the flying metal sheets, described by The 1re accentuate this apocalyptic vision.
The purple alert was lifted to allow emergency services to intervene. However, the situation remains chaotic: 15,000 homes are without electricity, roads are impassable and intermittent communications make it difficult to accurately assess human and material losses.
Cyclone Chido is a natural phenomenon, but it is exacerbated by global warming. The high surface water temperature of the Indian Ocean — reaching nearly 30°C — provided a huge reservoir of energy for the cyclone. According to Météo-France experts, climate change is leading to more intense and rainier cyclones.
Read also: Understanding cyclones: a major challenge for climatologists
IPCC projections indicate that with 1.5°C of global warming, the proportion of intense tropical cyclones could increase by 10 %, and 20 % if warming reaches 4°C. Although the total number of cyclones is expected to remain stable, their increasing intensity poses a major challenge for vulnerable populations.
A glaring structural vulnerability
The Mayotte disaster is all the more dramatic as the department suffers from deep structural vulnerability. As recalled Humanity77 % of the population lives below the poverty line, and 1 in 3 people live in precarious housing made of sheet metal. These shanty towns were completely razed by the cyclone, transforming into a « mass grave » according to MP (Liot) Estelle Youssouffa.
« In every disaster, it is appropriate […] to wonder what has made so many individuals so fragile »esteemed by Reporterre Jean-Paul Vanderlinden, environmental economist. Access to care, education and economic stability determine a society's ability to resist and recover after a climatic shock or a natural disaster, he explains.
However, the French state, often accused of negligence, is criticized for its management of the archipelago. The report of the general inspection of six ministries published in 2023 already denounced « a generalized bankruptcy of public administrations » in Mayotte. Despite investment promises, the department remains under-equipped in health, education and access to drinking water infrastructure. For example, 6 out of 10 homes do not have toilets or showers, contributing to epidemics such as cholera.
If military relief is on the way and the government claims to be « 100 % mobilized for the Mahorais »without real awareness of vulnerability factors, Mayotte will remain easy prey for future disasters. As pointed out on Reporterre anthropologist Sandrine Revet, it is not enough to manage the emergency: we must invest in appropriate urban planning and a reduction in inequalities to protect the most exposed populations.
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