Cyclone Chido hit the island of Mayotte, France: 14 dead and more than 200 injured

At least 14 people died in Mayotte When the fierce cyclone Chido hit the French territory in the Indian Ocean, authorities said Sunday, and officials warned that it will take days to know the total number of victims.

Rescue teams and supplies are arriving by air and sea, but their efforts will likely be hampered for damage to airports and to the distribution of electricity in a territory where even drinking water was already subject to chronic shortages.

The death toll of 14 appears in a provisional list prepared by the authorities, a security source told AFP.

Nine people were seriously injured and are fighting for their lives in hospital, said Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, mayor of Mayotte’s capital, Mamoudzou, while 246 others were seriously injured.

“The hospital is destroyed, the schools are destroyed, the houses are totally destroyed,” he said, adding that the hurricane “didn’t prevent anything.”

Mayotte’s 320,000 residents were ordered into lockdown when Cyclone Chido hit the islands about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Mozambique.

Its wind gusts of at least 226 kilometers per hour had “completely destroyed” the numerous shanty towns of the territory, declared the acting Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, after a crisis meeting in Paris last Saturday night.

Electricity poles were thrown to the ground, trees were uprooted, and roofs and tin walls were torn from makeshift structures where at least a third of the population lived.

AFP

“It will take several days” to establish the complete death toll, but “we fear it will be high,” Retailleau said, adding that the Muslim custom of burial on the day after death could complicate the count.

The information that reaches the confined population, in a state of shock and largely isolated from the supply of water and electricity, takes time to filter, a source familiar with the recovery efforts told AFP.

Ibrahim, a local resident, told AFP he had seen “apocalyptic scenes” as he crossed the main island and had to clear blocked roads.

“Even the largest companies have suffered damage,” he added.

Fight for supplies after Cyclone Chido

Retailleau will travel to Mayotte next Monday, his office saidalong with 160 soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 already deployed on the islands from France continental before the storm.

Medical personnel and equipment were being delivered since this Sunday by air and sea, indicated the prefecture of La Réunion, another French territory in the Indian Ocean about 1,400 kilometers away, on the other side of Madagascar.

Pope Francis, who visited the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, He urged people to pray for the residents of Mayotte.

“Everything has been razed, everything has been razed,” said Mounira, a woman whose house was destroyed in the Kaweni neighborhood, east of Mamoudzou, France’s largest shantytown.

More than 15,000 homes are without electricity, said acting Environment Minister Agnes-Pannier Runacher, while phone access is severely limited even for emergency calls.

The interim Minister of Transport, François Durovray, wrote on the 10th that the Pamandzi airport, in Petite-Terre, the smaller of Mayotte’s two main islands, had “suffered significant damage”.

Tormenta azota Mozambique

To the northwest of Mayotte, the Comoros islands, some of which were on red alert since last Friday, were also affected, but they only suffered minor damage.

Cyclone Chido hit Mozambique later this Sunday morning, bringing gale-force winds and heavy rain when it made landfall about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the northern city of Pemba, weather services said.

“The cyclone is already affecting Pemba with very strong intensity. “We are following the situation but there has been no communication with Pemba since 7:00 a.m.,” the director of the National Institute of Meteorology, Aderito Aramuge, told AFP.

UNICEF said it was on the ground to help people affected by the storm, which had already caused some damage.

“Many homes, schools and health facilities have been partially or completely destroyed and we are working closely with the government to ensure the continuity of essential basic services,” he said in a statement.

AFP

Cyclone Chido is the latest in a series of storms around the world driven due to climate change, according to experts.

The “exceptional” cyclone was enhanced by the particularly warm waters of the Indian Ocean, meteorologist François Gourand, from the French meteorological service Meteo France, told AFP.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday that it was similar in strength to cyclones Gombe in 2022 and Freddy in 2023, which They killed more than 60 people and at least 86 in Mozambique respectively.

It warned that around 1.7 million people were at risk and said the remnants of the cyclone could also dump “significant rain” on neighboring Malawi until Monday, potentially causing flash flooding.

Heavy rain is also expected in Zimbabwe and Zambia, he added.