Keystone-SDA
At least two deaths, “enormous” damage: the “exceptional” tropical cyclone Chido sowed desolation on Saturday in Mayotte, the poorest department in France, in the Indian Ocean.
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December 14, 2024 – 8:05 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) In Kawéni, a neighborhood located in the commune of the Mahoran “capital” Mamoudzou, “everything was taken away, everything was razed,” Mounira, a resident of the largest French slum, lamented to AFP. house was destroyed.
Two people died in the Petite-Terre sector, the small island in the archipelago where Pamandzi airport is located, east of Mamoudzou, AFP learned from a security source.
Closed until further notice, the airport, where gusts reached 226 km/h according to Météo-France, has “suffered major damage, notably the control tower”, indicated on X the resigning Minister of Transport François Durovray .
“Traffic will initially be restored with military relief aircraft. Ships are engaged to ensure supplies,” he added.
The Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq, indicated on the same social network that “the health system is seriously affected and access to care seriously degraded”, adding that “the Mayotte hospital center has suffered significant material damage “.
Power outages
While more than 15,000 homes are deprived of electricity, according to the resigning Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the Ministry of Industry is reporting “communication problems” which drastically limit emergency calls .
Secours populaire, for its part, launched an appeal for donations to help Mayotte, where more than three quarters of the approximately 320,000 inhabitants live below the national poverty line.
An A400M plane was due to take off from mainland France on Saturday evening with humanitarian cargo and civil security resources, accompanied by a frigate and a helicopter.
“Many of us have lost everything,” lamented the prefect of the 101st French department, François-Xavier Bieuville, reporting the “most violent and destructive cyclone we have experienced since 1934.”
According to explanations to AFP from François Gourand, forecaster at Météo-France, Cyclone Chido is “exceptional” because it directly hit the archipelago, while its power was boosted by particularly warm waters in the Indian Ocean. linked to climate change.
The situation raises fears of severe water supply difficulties in an archipelago already subject to water cuts.
The new Prime Minister François Bayrou participated in a crisis meeting at Place Beauvau in the evening, surrounded by many resigned ministers.
Lower alert level
The alert level was lowered from purple to red to allow emergency services to emerge, but the prefect called on the approximately 320,000 inhabitants of Mayotte to remain “confined” and “in solidarity” in “this ordeal”. Communications with the territory remain very difficult.
Ibrahim Mcolo, a resident of Chiconi in the west of Grande-Terre, had taken refuge in his family’s concrete house in Kangani, in the north of Grande-Terre.
“I see all the neighbors’ metal sheets flying away, cables torn out, the neighbor’s banana tree on the ground. Even in our house which is well protected, water enters. I feel her trembling,” he described to AFP in the morning.
“It’s time for urgency”
“The time has come for an emergency,” President Emmanuel Macron declared on X, assuring that “the whole country” was alongside the Mahorais. The resigning Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau announced a new dispatch on Sunday of 140 civil security soldiers and firefighters, bringing the personnel dispatched to the site to 250.
The technical services were active in the afternoon to clear the roads and allow emergency services to pass. Some 1,600 police officers and gendarmes are deployed to help the population and “prevent possible looting”, we learned from those close to Bruno Retailleau.
Around 100,000 people living in “unsound housing”, particularly in tin huts, had been identified in the archipelago by the authorities to be sheltered in more than 70 emergency accommodation centers.
The eye of the intense tropical cyclone moved away to the west and weather conditions “improved rapidly” late in the afternoon on the archipelago, according to the meteorological services. Chido was nevertheless expected to remain an “extremely dangerous” cyclone for many hours, and now threatens the coasts of Mozambique on the African continent.
Two of the Comoros islands, Anjouan – the closest to Mayotte – and Mohéli, were also affected, but much less severely. Mosques were flooded, kwasa (boats) swept away by the waves and homes damaged, reported Commander Abderemane Mahmoud of Comorian Civil Security.
